Dobruja - Etymology

Etymology

The most widespread opinion among scholars is that the origin of the term Dobruja is to be found in the Turkish rendition of the name of a 14th‑century ruler, despot Dobrotitsa. It was common for the Turks to name countries after one of their early rulers (for example, nearby Moldavia was known as Bogdan Iflak by the Turks, named after Bogdan I). Other etymologies have been considered, but never gained widespread acceptance. Abdolonyme Ubicini believed the name meant "good lands", derived from Slavic dobro ("good"), an opinion that was adopted by several 19th‑century scholars. This view, which contrasts with the usual 19th‑century description of Dobruja as a dry barren land, has been explained as the point of view of Ruthenes, who saw the Danube delta in the northern Dobruja as a significant improvement over the steppes to the North. I. A. Nazarettean combines the Slavic word with the Tatar budjak ("corner"), thus proposing the etymology "good corner". A version matching contemporaneous descriptions was suggested by Kanitz, which connected the name with the Bulgarian dobrice ("rocky and unproductive terrain"). According to Gheorghe I. Brătianu, the name is a Slavic derivation from a Turkic word (Bordjan or Brudjars) which referred to the Turkic Proto-Bulgarians, term also used by Arabic writers.

One of the earliest uses of the name can be found in the Turkish Oghuz-name narrative, dated to the 15th century, where it appears as Dobruja-éli, the possessive suffix el-i indicating that the land was considered as belonging to Dobrotitsa ("دوبرجه" in the original Ottoman Turkish). The loss of the final particle is not unusual in the Turkish world, a similar evolution being observed in the name of Aydın, originally Aydın-éli. Another early use is in the 16th‑century Latin translation of Laonicus Chalcondyles' Histories, where the term Dobroditia is used for the original Greek "Dobrotitsa's country" (Δοβροτίκεω χώρα). Beginning with the 17th cenutury the name became more common, with renditions such as Dobrucia, Dobrutcha, Dobrus, Dobruccia, Dobroudja, Dobrudscha and others being used by foreign authors.

Initially, the name meant just the steppe of the southern region, between the forests around Babadag in the north and the Silistra–Dobrich–Balchik line in the south, but eventually, the term was extended to include the northern part and the Danube Delta. In the 19th century, some authors used the name to refer just to the territory between the southernmost branch of the Danube (St. George) in the north and the Carasu Valley (nowadays the Danube-Black Sea Canal) in the south.