Etymology
There are similar earlier toponyms but the first documentation of Latin navarros appears in Eginhard's chronicle of the feats of Charles the Great. Other Royal Frankish Annals give nabarros. There are two proposed etymologies for the name of Navarra/Nafarroa/Naparroa:
- Basque nabar (declined abs. sing. nabarra): "brownish", "multicolor" (which would be a contrast with the green mountain lands north of the original County of Navarre).
- Basque naba/Castilian nava ("valley", "plain", present across Spain as in Las Navas de Tolosa) + Basque herri ("people", "land").
Note that Joan Corominas does not consider naba as clearly Basque in origin, but as part of a wider pre-Roman substrate.
Read more about this topic: Kingdom Of Navarre
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