Where do the name of belgium come from?
The name Belgae may come from the Proto-Celtic *belo which means “bright” and is allied to English word “bale” (as in “bale-fire”), the Anglo-Saxon bael, the Lithuanian baltas, meaning “white” or “shining” (from which the Baltic takes its name) and Slavic belo/bilo/bjelo/… meaning “white” (which gives town names like Beograd, Biograd, Bjelovar, etc all meaning “white city”) (see Beltane). Thus the Gaulish god-names “Belenos” (“Bright one”) and “Belisama” (probably the same divinity, originally from *belo-nos = our shining one) may also come from the same source. Another proposed etymology of the name Belga(e) is: *bel = proto-Indo-European word for round, inflated object (compare ‘ball’), in the figurative sense: “circle, army, alliance”, and -*ga, a Gaulish word for “man, warrior”. Bel-gae would then mean “men of the alliance”. The origin of the word would then be Gaulish.[citation needed] This meaning would match the description of Caesar.
