In most versions, he appears as a native or immigrant leader from Epirus, who gave his name to Macedonia, previously called Emathia according to Strabo,[1] which according to Marsyas of Pella was until then a part of Thrace.
[2] Both adjectives traditionally derive from the Indo-European root *mak- or *meh₂k-, meaning "long, slender", cognate with poetic Greek makednós or mēkedanós "long, tall",[3] Doric mãkos and Attic mẽkos "length",[4] Makistos, the mythological eponym of a town in Elis and an epithet of Heracles, Avestan masah "length", Hittite mak-l-ant "thin", Latin macer "meagre" and Proto-Germanic *magraz "lean, meager".
A fragment of the Macedonian historian Marsyas of Pella (4th century BC), through a scholiast of Iliad xiv 226[10] confirms the genealogy as found in the Catalogue of Women: "Makedon son of Zeus and Thyia, conquered the land then belonging to Thrace and he called it Macedonia after his name.
N. G. L. Hammond, based on the passage of Hellanicus, as well on the Thessalian Magnes being brother of Macedon, suggested that the Macedonian language is an Aeolic Greek dialect.
[16] Jonathan M. Hall compares Magnes and Macedon to other excluded tribes from direct lineage to Hellen and later Olympic participants, such as Aetolians, Acarnanians and Arcadians.
[18] In "The antiquities of Egypt", first chapter of Bibliotheca historica by Diodorus Siculus, which is based mainly on Aegyptiaca of Hecataeus of Abdera, Greek and Egyptian mythology have been syncretized.
In the story of Pindus and the Serpent by Claudius Aelianus, Makedon is the son of Lycaon king of Emathia, "after whom the land was called Macedonia no longer preserving its ancient name".
Boeotus, reported as father of autochthon Ogyges) In Greek sources, the noun is mostly attested as Μακεδών (Makedôn) with two exceptions: the poetic form Μακηδών (Makêdôn) in Hesiod with long medial vowel serving the metrical feet of dactylic hexameter and Mάκεδνος (Mákednos) or latinicized Macednus with barytonesis and apophony in Apollodorus.
The recessive accent is reminiscent of two Macedonian barytonized personal names, Κοῖνος (Koînos) and Βάλακρος (Bálakros) (Attic/Greek adjectives:koinós, phalakrós), but whether Makedôn or Mákednos is the original spelling presumably cannot be proven.