Chapter CCXXVII: Section V: Names of Virtue

Words signifying goodness are far from uncommon in this class of nomenclature. _Dobry_, good, has a worthy family. Dobrija, sometimes called Dobrowka, was the Bohemian princess whose marriage, like those of Clotilda, Bertha, and Anna, brought religion into her new country. Her husband, Miczslav, of Poland, had been born blind, but recovered his sight at seven years old. He had seven wives while still a heathen, but was told that he would have no children unless he began afresh with a Christian lady. He demanded the Czech princess. She brought St. Adalbert, of Prague, with her; and Mistislaus, as he is generally called in history, is counted as the first Polish Christian king, in the year 970. So national was the name, that the Poles altered Maria of Muscovy to Dobrija, on her marriage with Kasimir, their king. The other names of this commencement are Illyrian—Dobrogast, Dobroljub, Dobroslav, and its feminine Dobrovoj, Dobrvok, Dobrutin, and Dobrotina, Good guest, Good love, Good glory, Good war, Good wolf, and Beneficent.

_Ssvätyj_, holy, and _polk_, government, are the component parts of the old Russian Sviatopolk, often found among the early race of Rurik. Holy glory, Sviatoslav, was the inappropriate name of the son of the Christian princess Olga, the same who refused baptism, believing that all the converts were cowards, and that he should lose the support of the war gods and of his followers.

The Illyrian _blag_, good, makes Blagorod, Good birth, also, as usual, Blagovoj, Blagoslav, Blagodvor, Blagogost, and the contraction Blagoje.

_Prav_ is upright, a connection, it may be, of _probus_, and it has formed the Slavonic Upravda, and the Illyrian Pravdoslav, Pravdoslava, Pravoje. It is, perhaps, the same with the Wend _prib_, which formed the name Pribislava. The Danes amalgamated the Wend _pred_ into their own names as Predbiorn, or Preban.

_Çast_, or _cest_, is honour. The first letter, _ç_, should be pronounced _z_; it is rather a favourite with Poland and Bohemia. Çastibog exactly answers to the Greek Timotheus, as does Çastimir to the modern German Ehrenfried, very possibly a translation from it. Çastislav is the most popular form, like all else ending in _slav_, and has shortened into Çaslav, Çaislav, Cestislav, Ceslav.

Of the same sound is the first letter of _çist_, pure, whence Çistav and Çistislav. From _tverd_, firm, we have Tverdko, Tverdimir, Tverdislav.