Talk:Malamir of Bulgaria

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Category: Child rulers

This article is in Category:Child rulers. His age at the time of accession and death need to be nailed down and either this category should be removed or the proper sub-category substituted. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malamir and Iran

I am a historian of Iran, and so have no problems with the Iranian connection claimed here. However, it is standing on wooden feet. The Iranian town Malamir (which is by the way in Khuzestan, NOT Lorestan) is actually a later, Islamic name for the older Iranian name "Idhag/Idhaj" (Modern "Izeh"). It was known in the ancient times as Ayapir. The word Malamir in the case of the city is made up of "Mal" (Arabic, meaning "possession") and Amir (Arabic, meaning "prince, ruler") and as a whole, denotes the belonging of the city to a certain, unidentified Amir. So, the Iranian city is actually Mal-Amir and seems quite co-incidental. However, I can think that the -mir in the name of the Bulgarian ruler is the same as Slavic -mir (as in Vladimir), cognate with Norse -mar (Valdemar) and possibly connected to Iranian "Mihr" (god Mithra, meaning both "friendship" and "social contract, rule"). In this case, the Mala- could also be from Iranian Marda (with east Irania/Scythian /rd/ to /l/) meaning "men, people", as a whole making the name to mean "Ruler of People"... --174.67.222.219 (talk) 00:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, this view fails, unless someone can find a name like Vladimir earlier than it is attested to Bulgaria. You can't have "Slavic" names in Rurikid dynasties without a thorough investigation of what, actually, are and are not Slavic roots. Take a look at the -imir ending as a ruler's name among the Franks (particularly Ripuarian Franks). It's obviously combined with various root forms to create new names (it means "the Great"), and so it came into Slavic along a Gothic/Ostrogothic/Frankish route (not from Iran). Of course, this may or may not explain how it came into Bulgaria, but as it is moving eastward from its origins in Jutland (400 BC), as a name for a ruler, it would make sense that it gets to Bulgaria first (which it appears to).LeValley 05:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)