Tracce e reminiscenze dei Goti in area ravennate tra il sesto e il decimo secolo: diversità e inclusione alla luce dei dati antroponimici

This essay takes into account the Germanic personal names and their name-giving in the area of Ravenna from the sixth up to the end of tenth century. The middle of the sixth century records the peak of Gothic names in charters, in many cases connected to donations or sales of real estate due to material necessities after the loss of the Ostrogothic kingdom. Even when the Gothic community struggles to survive, the linguistic analysis on personal names shows that their language is still alive and in good health. Surprisingly enough, from the end of the same century, Germanic names completely disappear from charters: what did it happen to the community? The study of the charters of the following centuries demonstrates that Germanic names emerge again from the very end of the eighth century. New people with Germanic names are recorded, and some of them evoke the great aristocratic families of the Gothic past. This essay mainly focuses on the concepts of diversity and inclusion: the disappearing of Gothic names cannot be considered as a natural inclusion of Ostrogoths among the Roman population but reveals instead a sort of forced inclusion. The presence of name-giving referring to the Goths still at the end of the tenth century offers evidence that the Gothic past had survived in some way.