Favonae is a Latinization of Greek Phauonai, the name of a

Germanic people The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

’s ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

'' (2.10) located in eastern

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

. They are not found elsewhere in classical sources. Moreover, Ptolemy’s view of the north is so distorted that the location of his east Scandinavia remains uncertain. However, the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

spelling, Phau-, gives a possible clue to its meaning. It looks like

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

feaw-, "few", which, following the analogy of Harudes, would have come from *faw-. Th
American Heritage Dictionary
lists the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

root as *pau- "few, little", becoming *fau- in Germanic *fawaz by

Grimm's Law Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...

. There is a name of the same meaning in modern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized f ...

, which would have been at a location known to Ptolemy in southeastern Scandinavia. It means "small land", which name refers to its broken and uncultivatable terrain; i.e., the province includes only small land for settlement purposes. As the name is based on the terrain, it would have been most likely kept over the centuries. The terrain encouraged emigration from

Kalmar Kalmar (, , ) is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 36,392 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

, where the land was much bigger. As the name of the Favonae is based on the terrain, they might well have been known by some other, ethnic name, not reported by Ptolemy. There is a notable suggestion by Kendrick, published in 1930 (see under

Dauciones The Daukiones (Greek) or Dauciones (Latinization) were a Germanic tribe mentioned by Ptolemy (2.10) as living in Scandia, i.e. Scandinavia. Ptolemy's view of the north is so distorted that his names require some decoding to locate them, nor can tha ...

), that the Favonae were not in Sweden but were on the coast of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

opposite. This hypothesis is based entirely on the argument that the Levonii of Ptolemy are the Swedes proper and therefore the east of them must be Finland. However, Kendrick also argues that the Chaideinoi could not have been in Hedemark because the latter was too remote for Ptolemy. If Hedemark is to be considered remote, then Finland must be even more so; moreover, Ptolemy does mention the Finns and does not identify them with the Favonae. Kendrick does not supply us with any names from Finland.

See also