Alaunus

His name is known from inscriptions found in Lurs, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in Southern France[1] and in Mannheim in western Germany.

[2] The feminine form Alauna (from an earlier *Alamnā) is at the origin of many place-names and hydronyms across Europe,[3] including the Roman-era names of Valognes in Normandy, Maryport and Watercrook in Cumbria, River Alyn in North Wales, Alcester in Warwickshire, Ardoch in Perthshire, and Learchild and the River Aln in Northumberland.

[citation needed] The Gaulish theonym Alaunos stems from a Proto-Celtic form reconstructed as *Alamnos.

It has been traditionally derived from the root *al- ('feed, raise, nurture'), and compared with the Latin alumnus ('nursling') and with names of rivers such as Almus in Moesia, Yealm (*Almii) in England, or Alme in Westphalia.

Old Irish alam, Welsh alaf), and the ethnonym Alauni rendered as the 'errants' or the 'nomads', contrasting with the name of the Anauni ('the Staying Ones').