Here is a bit of Jordanes:
“Now from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago under their king, Berig by name. As soon as they disembarked from their ships and set foot on the land, they straightway gave their name to the place. And even to-day it is said to be called Gothiscandza.”
Ex hac igitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum cum rege suo nomine Berig Gothi quondam memorantur egressi: qui ut primum e navibus exientes terras attigerunt, ilico nomen loci dederunt. Nam odieque illic, ut fertur, Gothiscandza vocatur.
Of course, bereg simply means “shore”, “bank” or “edge” (here of sea) in Suavic (brěg in OCS, bereg/bierieg in Russian, brzeg in Polish, brzeh in Czech, brijeg in Serbo-Croatian). Separately, brěgynję referred to water nymphs in OCS. Bruckner sees the word as cognate with the German Berg meaning “mountain” and Avestani berez meaning “tall”, the latter being a source, perhaps, also of bereza (Belarussian for a “birch tree”; Polish brzoza, German Birke).
The fact that the name of the legendary Gothic leader landing on the south shore of the Baltic (?) is the same as the Suavic word for a water’s edge is unlikely to be a coincidence. It seems that this mythical person is simply who was made up by some Suavic intermediary relaying information to Jordanes or, more likely, Cassiodorus. It may even have been a practical joke.
Another interesting aspect of looking at some manuscripts is that the “Gothiscandza” does not seem like a Gothicscandza at all:
Rather, it appears that, at best the Goths named the country they landed in Scandza (maybe like New Spain or New England). And, frankly, the above at least does not look like Scandza but rather cccndza. If you wanted to be cheeky, you could say that the Scandi-navia – or new ( 🙂 ) Skandza would even suggest that the “old” Scanza may have been somewhere else – so perhaps the direction of migration was reversed. I have not looked at the other manuscripts on this so this is all just tongue-in-cheek.
Incidentally, Brückner has the following to say about the Polish skąd (pronounced skond) meaning “from where”. He traces it to kędy which means “where”, today’s Polish gdzie which, of course, with its “g” and “d” combination reminds of Gets.
kędy, ‘gdzie’, urobione, jak tędy, owędy, od pnia zaimka pytajnego ko- i pnia zaimkowego d-, co się powtarza w gdzie, kiedy; odkąd = pruskie iskwendau, to samo; kędyś, kędykolwiek, dokąd, pokąd; por. łac. unde; u nas kończy się to złożenie stale na -y, ale cerk. ot kądu, rus. ot kuda, bułg. ot kŭdě; skrócone: serb. kud, słowień. kod, czes. dokud i dokad.
Anyways, we wrote about this some time back but it seems worth reiterating these points.
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In Croatian brijeg/brig/breg means “hill”, differently than in Polish “brzeg” (shore, edge). It is similar to German Berg. Only, brijeg/breg/brig (variants of Croatian dialects) is designation of hill that is of moderate altitude, that is, not very high. If it is very big and very high, then is: gora or planina (mountain). In older layers of language exists an archaism for “hill”: hum. So, Hercegovina was known in early middle ages as: Hum, Zahumlje.
There is place-name in Croatian Zagorje: Hum Lug and also Dubrava. In geography of this locations we can observe: on one side is the hill (hum) on the other side there is plain, once with trees, because lug in Croatian means something like “little forest”. And Dubrava (also Dubrovnik) (toponym) means also something like a forest or woods. Although, all these are today archaisms. Normally used word for forest today is “šuma”.