Etymology
In the Manx Gaelic language the Isle of Man is known as Ellan Vannin, where ellan is a Manx word meaning island. The earliest form of 'Man' is Manu or Mana giving the genitive name Manann leading to the word Mannin, which is lenited when used after the feminine word ellan, giving Mhannin. As mh is pronounced like a v in Goidelic languages, in modern Manx the name becomes, Ellan Vannin. The name is related to the figure of Celtic mythology known as Manannán to the Irish and Manawyddan to the Welsh.
The name enters recorded history as Mona (Julius Caesar, 54 BC), and is also recorded as Monapia or Monabia (Pliny the Elder, AD 77), Monœda (Ptolemy, AD 150), Mevania or Mænavia (Paulus Orosius, 416), and Eubonia or Eumonia by Irish writers. In Welsh records it is Manaw, and in the Icelandic sagas it is Mön.
Though the Isle of Man was never incorporated into the Roman Empire, the island was noted in Greek and Roman accounts where it was called variously Monapia, Mοναοιδα (Monaoida), Mοναρινα (Monarina), Menavi and Mevania. The Old Welsh and Old Irish names for the Isle of Man, Manau and Mano, also occur in Manau Gododdin, the name for an ancient district in north Britain along the lower Firth of Forth. The name is probably connected with the Welsh name of the island of Anglesey, Ynys Môn and possibly with the Celtic root reflected in Welsh mynydd, Breton menez, Scottish Gaelic monadh, "mountain"., which probably derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *men-, "to tower". In this case, such a name may have referred to the island apparently rising out of the Irish Sea on the horizon.
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