Milena VARBANOVA< /p>
More and more Spaniards and Latin Americans are naming their sons Diego. The name is also very popular in Italy. Its Portuguese variant is Diogo (Diogu). I have often wondered what the meaning of this name is, which, by its sound, seemed very ancient to me. Etymological dictionaries unanimously claim that Diego is descended from Iago - Jacob and that the first Spaniard attested with this name fought against the Moors. But even a child would not believe that Diego and Iago are identical - so superficial and ridiculous is the statement of the official "etymologists". And when I saw the name of the ruler of the Kenites, Diegilis, who reigned in the second half of the 2nd century BC, mentioned in Strabo (Kn.13, 4), I was already sure that Diego and Diogo were replicas of this Thracian a name which existed both in Iberia and Lusitania.
But what will Diegilis say? What is the original meaning of this word? It turned out that there were lay researchers who had dealt with it, but they were misled by the first syllable "di", which they interpreted as "two" - "double", and the meaning of "egilis" have searched through the ancient Greek dictionaries and ended up completely confused.
Actually, the Thracian name Diegilis should be considered in its entirety, eliminating, of course, the suffix "-is". The word "diegil" and it is precisely its meaning that we need to interpret.
This word immediately referred me to a famous Russian surname - that of the notable founder of the "Russian Ballet of Diaghilev". It turns out that the name Diaghilev also has variants in Russia - for example, Dogilev (we will return to it again). Not far from Moscow, near Ryazan, is the village of Diagilevo. Diaghilev or "diagil" originates from the Russian name of a healing plant - angelica - "diagil", "dudnik", also called "female ginseng". Russian etymological dictionaries are unanimous that the name of the herb comes from "diagly" which means "strong", "strong", "strong", tough". The same is the meaning of "diagil" and in the Ukrainian language, from the verb "дягнуть" - pull, stretch (figuratively - get better, improve).
"Strong", "Healthy", "Strong", "Tough" - an excellent name for a ruler. In the absence of the sound "ya" in the Greek language, it is logically rendered by a sound combination like "ia" or "you" - "diegil".
But I will try to take one more step forward in my assumptions, because until recently in the Bulgarian language the word "dingil" was in regular use. Here is the explanation of "dingil" in the Bulgarian interpretive dictionary:
"(obsolete) Front or rear axle of a country cart drawn by animals. Usually a metal pipe or strong iron at the ends of which the cart wheels are mounted."
The term "dingil" has another, figurative meaning - "tall, thin person". Or a type to whom we can give the definition "long" - "elongated", "stretched".
Here is the exact meaning of the name Diegilis - "tall", "long" (per height). The Spanish Diego and especially the Portuguese Diogo, which earlier seemed rather ugly to me, are derivatives of the word "long", in which the typically Bulgarian sound combination "ol" is replaced by "ie" and "io". The Dogilev variant of the famous Russian name Diaghilev convincingly indicates that in fact the original concept is "long", "long" - "long". And indeed, the stems of angelica - "diagil" - reach a height of 2 m.
More than once, the sacred Bulgarian speech proved to be the key to a mystery that has been floating from ancient times to the present day - and from Pontus and the Propontis to the Atlantic.