Konrád

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Konrad— “bold council”

  Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi, both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech, was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of Corradino,…

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  Be this as it may, a large class of names has arisen from these words of knowledge and action, earliest of the bearers of which should stand Kunimund, king of the Gepidæ, and Chunimund, king of the Suevi, both meaning Able protection. Chuonrath, Able council, or Bold-speech, was also Suevic, and in the form of Konrad, afterwards a world-wide name in the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, till the last of their generous though impetuous blood was shed on the scaffold of Corradino, as Naples fondly termed its unfortunate young heir, the Conradin of history. Pity for his untimely fate assisted to spread the name through all the German dependencies, and it has become so common that, like Vasili, Tom, and Heinz, Künz has descended to cats. It has the feminine Cunzila; and our old Mercian King Cenred represented it in England.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part VI, Chapter VI (Descriptive Names), Section VI (Power) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)