The Sources of the *-ono- ‘god’ Suffix

The famous ‘god name’ suffix *-ono-/ā was derived by resegmentation from two sources: n-stems such as the word for ‘river’ (Watkins, ‘River’ in Celtic and Indo-European. Ériu 24: 80–89, 1973), and *no-/nā derivatives made to thematic stems. There are also examples of such derivatives made to ā-stems, i-stems, and u-stems. Therefore, derivatives in *-ono-/ā made to consonant stems, such as W Modron ‘divine mother’ < Celt. *mātr-onā, are secondary.