> Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 08:33:51 -0700
> From: Sylvia Sotomayor <sylvia1@...>
> > And actually, the Linux guy is Linus Torvalds. I'm more interested in
> > knowing where that last name came from --- it reminds me of the
> > Latvian practice of tacking -s on all foreign male names that don't
> > fit into any common masculine noun class. (And -e for the girls). For
> > instance the Danish author Hans Christians Andersens.
>
> My grandmother's friend in Berlin was Frau Thorvald. It seems German to me,
> though I suppose it could be Norse.
The T(h)orvald part is not a mystery --- that's a common North
Germanic name ('might of Thor'), and can easily have been borrowed
into any of the Baltic cultures.
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)