Zum Ortnamen Kaaden / Kadaň

The name of the small town Kadaň (Czech), Kaaden (German) in the North-West of the Czech Rebublic lacks an unanimously accepted etymology. The article will discuss the existing etymologies. The Celtic etymology of the place-name proposed some ten years ago in this journal can be dismissed, because too many additional conditioning factors (mostly not corroborated by any parallels) have to be taken into account. It is more probable that the traditional Slavic etymology has to be accepted (again): The Czech place-name Kadaň thus means ‘Kadan’s (castle/town)’ and is derived with the Slavic possessive j-suffix from the rare personal name Common Slavic *Kadanъ, Old Czech Kadan, itself a derivative of the root Common Slavic *kad- ‘to smoke’ vel sim. The German form Kaaden is taken over from Czech Kadaň.