What names tell us about
SCARBANTIA – SOPRON - ÖDENBURG Three names that our city has had in the last two millennia.
Scarbantia
Is the Celtic origin name of the Roman city founded in the early 1st century (during the time of Emperor Tiberius).Its meaning is “separate settlement”, which suggests that the Roman city founded on the site of today’s downtown was separated from the areas inhabited by the Celts.
There are several theories for the Hungarian name of Sopron :
1: It comes from the personal name of Suprun, who in the 11th century, was the first overseer of the castle
2: A French source from 1096 calls the city Cyperon. This may come from the Latin adjective “superum”, which indicates the administrative significance of the city. Another explanation is that it evolved from the Latin word Cyperus, which refers to a family of sedges (the plant), as the Romans founded the city in a swampy, marshy area.
3: The humanist historian Bonfini derived the word Sopron from the name of the Roman citizen Sempronius.
Ödenburg translates into English as abandoned/destroyed castle. There are also several explanations for its origin:
1: a pre-conquest (Carolingian) German name, which also refers to the Roman city walls, which are monumental even in their ruins.
2: In the 14th century (during the reign of Charles I of Hungary), German settlers (hospeses) and merchants had a conflict with the Hungarian citizenship, and outside the castle walls, north of the city, they founded a new settlement called Ödenburg. Once the dispute was over, they returned and also brought the name with them.