Cornovii (Cornwall)

It has been inferred on the basis of a place-name listed in the Ravenna Cosmography of c. 700 CE as purocoronavis, which is considered to be a scribal error for durocornavis (or durocornovium[6]), interpreted as meaning "the fortress of the Cornovii".

[7] The British tribal name Cornovii is also implied by its reflexes in Welsh Cernyw, Breton Kernev, and Cornish Kernow, (all meaning 'Cornwall') which Peter Schrijver argues probably derive from Common Brittonic *kornou̯(i̯)ī.

[10] Malcolm Todd, in The South West to AD 1000 (1987), discusses other etymologies that have been put forward, such as the name being a reference to dwellers in promontory forts,[6] and an explanation hypothesised by Ann Ross in 1967 that the tribal names may be totemic cult-names referring to a "horned god" cult followed by the tribes, which Todd says may be cognate with the Gaulish Cernunnos or the unnamed horned god of the Brigantes.

Morris suggested that a contingent was sent to Dumnonia to rule the land there and keep out the invading Irish, seeing that a similar situation had occurred in North Wales.

[5] Morris's theory is not generally accepted by modern scholarship: Philip Payton, in his book Cornwall: a history (2004), states "...the Morris thesis is not widely accepted by archaeologists and early historians, and we may safely conclude that the Cornovii located west of the Tamar were an indigenous people quite separate from their namesakes in the Midlands and Caithness.