Vistula - Origins of The Name Vistula

Origins of The Name Vistula

The name was first recorded by Pliny in AD 77 in his Natural History. He uses Vistula (4.52, 4.89) with an alternative spelling, Vistillus (3.06). The Vistula River ran into the Mare Suebicum, which is today known as the Baltic Sea. The root of the name Vistula is Indo-European ultimately from proto-Indo-European. The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European language groups, including Latin (see Ursula).

In writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling, "Ouistoula". Other ancient sources spell it "Istula". Pomponius Mela refers to the "Visula" (Book 3) and Ammianus Marcellinus to the "Bisula" (Book 22), both of which names lack the -t-. Jordanes (Getica 5 & 17) uses "Viscla" while the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the "Wistla". 12th century Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek called the river Vandalus from the Lithuanian "vanduo", meaning "water". Jan Długosz in his Annales seu cronicae incliti called the Vistula "White river": "a nationibus orientalibus Polonis vicinis, ab aquae condorem Alba aqua ... nominatur".