Sigismund

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sigismund (variants: Sigmund, Siegmund) is a German proper name, meaning "protection through victory", from Old High German sigu "victory" + munt "hand, protection". Tacitus Latinises it Segimundus. It looks like there is an older form of the High German word "Sieg" (victory): sigis, obviously Gothic and an inferred Germanic form, and there is a younger form: sigi, which is Old Saxon or Old High German sigu (both from about 9th century). A 5th century Prince of Burgundy was known both as Sigismund and Sigimund (see Ernst Förstemann, Altdeutsche Personennamen, 1906; Henning Kaufmann, Altdeutsche Personennamen, Ergänzungsband,1968).

A Lithuanian name Žygimantas, meaning "wealth of (military) campaign", from Lithuanian žygis "campaign, march" + manta "goods, wealth" has been a substitution of the name Sigismund in the Lithuanian language, from which it was adopted by the Ruthenian language as Жыгімонт (such are the cases of Sigismund Kestutaitis, Sigismund Korybut, Sigismund I the Old, Sigismund II Augustus).

Sigismund was the name of several European nobles:

Sigismund/Siegmund may also refer to:

  • Brother Sigismund of the Black Templars, founder of the Black Templars
  • Sigismund (bell), a famous bell in the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, cast in 1520
  • Siegmund, a focal character in Richard Wagner's Die Walküre
  • Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, fictional King of Bohemia in "A Scandal in Bohemia" (Sherlock Holmes adventure)
  • Sigismund the mad maths teacher, a character in the Nigel Molesworth school stories

[edit] See also