Dublin - Dubh linn - Dyflinni - Black Pool etc...

Don't really know where to go with this, but a guy I know on IRC (who
happens to live in Dublin) asked me if Icelandic was really a bit like Old
Norse. I said that it indeed was, so he asked me how I'd say Black Pool in
Icelandic.

"Svarti Pollur", I replied.

This didn't satisfy him (he went "Hmmmmmm"), so I asked him why he wanted to
know that. He told me that Dublin meant Black Pool, and was the name of an
old fort built by (Danish?) Vikings a long time ago. He was hoping to find
some similarity in the modern version of Black Pool to Dubh linn (as he
claimed the Vikings had named it).

This got me scratching my head quite a bit, Dubh Linn definately doesn't
look very scandinavian. I thought it could be celticised version of the
viking words, the Dubh could be related to the 'dumb' in 'dumbrauður', what
I think is a sort of a dark red colour, although I was unsure where this
'dumb' came from. Not very likely, but it could be. I couldn't find anything
resembling Linn, though.

Then I remembered that Dublin is often called Dyflinni in Icelandic. This
got me a bit closer, 'linni' could conceivably be related to modern 'lón'
(lagoon), and that's sort of the same thing as a pool. I can't think of
anything Dyf could possibly be.

Well, we gave up trying to find The Answer, but The Question's been nagging
me ever since. Finally, I realized someone here might know the answer, or at
least give me some suggestions.

Fire away :)

Bjorn

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