Yngvi

Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing are names that relate to a theonym which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz was the legendary ancestor of the Ingaevones, or more accurately Ingvaeones, and is also the reconstructed name of the Elder Futhark rune ᛜ and Anglo-Saxon rune ᛝ, representing ŋ. A torc, the so-called "Ring of Pietroassa", part of a late third to fourth century Gothic hoard discovered in Romania, is inscribed in much-damaged runes, one reading of which is gutanī [i(ng)]wi[n] hailag "to Ingwi[n] of the Goths holy". Etymology Old Norse Yngvi as well as Old High German Inguin and Old English Ingƿine are all derived from the Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz. Sound changes in late-Proto-Germanic transformed *Ingwaz into *Ingwi(z) in the nominative case and *Ingwin in the accusative case. His epithet *Fraujaz appears in Old Norse compounds Ingvifreyr and Ingunarfreyr. In Beowulf we see Hrothgar called (OE) fréa inguina, which means 'Lord of the Inguins', i.e. lord of the Ingvaeones, the 'friends of Ing'. This strongly indicates that the two deities, Ing and Freyr are indeed the same. However, it is also possible that Ing and Freyr were separate people because they had different fathers. Ing’s father was Mannus. Freyr’s father was Njörðr. The Ingvaeones, who occupied a territory roughly equivalent to modern Denmark, Frisia, Northern Germany, and the Low Countries at the turn of the millennium, were mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural Histories as one of "five Germanic tribes". Tacitus asserts their descent from the three sons of Mannus or *Mannaz cognate with Manus in Hinduism, the 'first man', of whom *Ingwaz may have been one. Other names that retain the theonym are or Ingemar and Yngling, the name of an old Scandinavian dynasty.