Abstract
The article starts with the analysis of the textual proofs for *doma- in the early Germanic languages. Already in Gothic (4th c.) the term settled in the semantic fields of law and judgement, having an Indo-European base meaning ‘to fix, to order’. As second element in compounds the word preserved its original meaning, e.g. in Old High German biscof-tuom ‘state, jurisdiction, possessions of a bishop’. As individual word it passed over to the semantic sphere of might and power. Many personal names of the Early Middle Ages (until 900) are composed with the element *doma-. The article gives a typologically arranged list of them: We have 30% monothematic names, containing one stem and a suffixe (800 Tuom-ila < *Dom-ila). 35% of the monothematic names are hybrid formations, bearing a Romance suffixe. Those hybrids signal the deep rooting of law and order terms in the Roman-Germanic world of the early regnum Francorum. In contrast to this 70% of the names composed with the element *doma- are dithematic formations, containing two stems (6/7th c. DOM[O]VALDO < *Doma-walda- ‘ruler of power and justice’). The geographic distribution of the *domanames gives 29% to North- and East-France, 20% to the West, 6% to the South of Gallia, also 6% to the Frankish territories around the rivers Mosella, Rhine and Main. We see a strong concentration in the center of the Merovingian realm, having only a faint radiation to Alemannia and Bavaria. The element fails nearly totally in Thuringia and Saxony. But until the 6th century, there existed a small second center in Eastgermanic gentes like Goths and Wisigoths.
