On the Etymology of the Place Name Brăíla

The paper addresses the etymology of the toponym Brăíla, the name of a Lower Danube town in Romania. The author provides historical and geographic data showing the antiquity of the toponym and, at the same time, its exceptional rarity resulting from its embeddedness into a complex ethno-linguistic area. The latter largely explains the difficulty of its etymological interpretation. Theoretically, it may be derived from Celtic, Turkic, Slavic, or Romanian sources. The author also shows that besides evident isoglosses the collected onomastic material may display isophones, i.e. occasional phonetic coincidences. Based on typological data, the author considers existing hypotheses related to the etymology of Brăíla. The analysis provides evidence that leads to refute any suggestion of its Celtic, Turkic, or Romanian origin and indicates the word *Brail(-o/-a), most likely a Southern Slavic personal name or nickname, as the most probable etymon for the toponym in question. It seems to derive from the common Slavic verb *bьrlati/*bьrl’ati with a broad semantic scope that includes meanings like ‘tinker,’ ‘mess,’ etc.