b) Etymology of her name

Her name is obviously similar to the Ardennes, the name of the massif and of its vast surrounding forest situated in the north-east of France and the south of Belgium. The Celticity of Arduinna’s name has been challenged by some scholars, such as G. Dottin, who questioned whether the divine names Vosegus, Abnoba and Arduinna were of Celtic origin.¹¹²⁴ Spickermann, Sterckx and Delamarre however argue it is related to a Celtic root arduo- signifying ‘high’ or ‘eminent’, cognate with Old Irih ard, ‘high’ or ‘big’, Welsh ardd, ‘hill’ and Old Breton ard, art, ‘high, steep’.¹¹²⁵ Arduinna would thus mean ‘the High One’ or ‘the Eminent One’.As for Olmsted, he connects the second element of her name binna, vinna, venna to a Celtic stem *benno- meaning ‘summit, hill’, similar to Welsh bann and Old Irish benn, ‘mountain, summit, hill’.¹¹²⁶ He suggests then to gloss her name as ‘the High Hills’, which is dubious, for Gaulish banna, benna, ‘point’, ‘tip’, ‘peak’, ‘summit’ seems to be a different word.¹¹²⁷ Arduinna’s name having nothing to do with woods or forests, the translation of her name as ‘Wooded Height’, which is sometimes encountered in the works of certain scholars, has no justification.¹¹²⁸

Sterckx compares Arduinna to an Irish goddess called Áirdean, whose name, coming from an ancient *Arden, would also mean ‘the High One’.¹¹²⁹ Yet, in the Lebor Gabála Érenn [‘The Book of Invasions’], her name is not Áirdean but Airgoen, the daughter of Flidais and the sister of Bé Chuille, Bé Théite and Dianann. Áirdean does not actually exist and Airgoen’s name is not etymologically related to Arduinna’s:

‘Flidais diatà buar Flidais; a cethri ingena, Airgoen 7 Bé Chuille 7 Dinand 7 Bé Theite.

Flidais, of whom is the ‘Cattle of Flidais’; her four daughters were Argoen and Be Chuille and Dinand and Be Theite.¹¹³⁰ ’

Arduinna’s connection with the Iranian goddess Arddvī Sūra Anāhitā, as suggested by Heinrich Wagner, is not possible either, for Arddvī Sūra Anāhitā does not mean ‘elevated’, ‘high’ but ‘the wet one’.¹¹³¹