Endonym of the ethnic group and country Primary sources use several names for the Magyars/Hungarians. However, their original historical
endonym — the name they used to refer to themselves in the
Early Middle Ages — is uncertain. In sources written in Arabic, the Magyars are denominated '
or ', for example by
Ahmad ibn Rustah; '
or ', such as by
al-Mas’udi; '
by al-Tartushi, for instance; and ', by sources like
ibn Hayyan. One of the earliest written mentions of "Magyar" endonym is from 810. :
“Hunorum gens” = “Hun race” The Hungarian endonym is '
, which is derived from Old Hungarian '. The name is derived from '
of the 9th or 10th century (contemporarily '), one of the 7 major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes (the others being the , , , , , and ), which dominated the others after the ascension of one of its members, namely , and his subsequent
dynasty. The tribal name '
became ' in reference to the Hungarian people as a whole. There are many hypotheses on the origin of this name. The first element '
is connected to the ethnonym of the Mansi (', '
, and '), but no Proto-Ugric form can be reconstructed due to irregular vowel correspondences. The second element '
("man", "men", and "lineage") is also of unclear origin; it was formerly considered to be cognate with Mari ' ("son") and
Finnish archaic '''' ("young man"), but this proposal has been rejected in more recent research.
European exonyms for Hungarians and Hungary In early medieval sources, in addition to the Hungarians, the exonym '
or ' referred to the
Mansi and
Khantys also. It may refer to the Hungarians during a time when they dwelt east of the
Ural Mountains along the natural borders of Europe and Asia before the
Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895–6. The toponym '
or ' referred to that territory from around the 12th century.
Herodotus in the 5th century BC probably referred to ancestors of the Hungarians when he wrote of the Yugra people living west of the
Ural Mountains. In
Byzantine sources, the Magyars are called '
; ', by
Emperor Leo VI "the Wise", for example; and '
, such as by Emperor Constantine VII '. Written sources called Magyars "Ungarians" prior to the
Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895–6 when they lived on the
steppes of Eastern Europe, specifically: '
by Georgius Monachus in 837, ' in '
of 862, and ' in '''' of 881. The ethnonym '
is the Latinized form of Byzantine Greek ' (). According to an explanation, the Greek name was borrowed from
Old Bulgar ągrinŭ, which in turn comes from
Oghuric On-Ogur (meaning "ten [tribes of the]
Ogurs"), the collective name for the tribes which later joined the
Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the
Avars. The Hungarians probably belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is very possible that they became its ethnic majority. The Latin variant ''
used for them by Widukind of Corvey in his The Deeds of the Saxons of the 10th century is most probably patterned after Middle High German . The Italians called the Hungarians as Ungherese
, the country as Ungheria''. When referencing the Magyars, the oldest
Medieval Latin sources usually use '
, ', late high medieval sources started to use a "H" prefix before the ethnonym: '
, ', but some of the later high medieval sources call them '
or '. The "H" prefix before the ethnonym and country name appeared in official Latin language Hungarian documents, royal seals and coins since the reign of king
Béla III (r. 1172–1196). The German and Italian languages preserved the original form (without H prefix) of the ethnonym. The addition of the unetymological prefix "H-" in High Medieval-era Latin is most probably due to the politically motivated historical associations of the Hungarians with the
Huns who settled Hungary prior to the Avars, Slavs and the Hungarians themselves.
The origin of the English ethnonym and country name The English word "Hungary" is derived from Medieval Latin
Hungaria. ==Hungarian sources==