Arausio was a local Celtic water god who gave his name to the town of Arausio (Orange) in southern Gaul, as attested to by ancient inscriptions.[1]
The modern name of both the city and the family that established itself there, the House of Orange-Nassau, is a corrupted version of the Celtic word Arausio. In the Middle Ages, the name of the city was conflated in French and Late Latin with another word, orange.
References
[edit]- ^ Green, Miranda (1997). Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.