Max Müller has much more plausibly suggested that _God_ was formerly a heathen name for the Deity, which passed into Christian usage, like the Latin _Deus_. (Science of Language, 6th ed. II. 317.) Following this hint, I suggested, several years ago (North Amer. Review, Oct. 1869, p. 354), that _God_ is probably identical with _Wodan_ or _Odin_, the name of the great Northern deity, the chief object of the worship of our forefathers. This relation of an initial _G_ to an initial _W_ is a very common one; as for example _Guillaume_ and _William_, _guerre_ and _war_, _guardian_ and _warden_, _guile_ and _wile_. The same thing is seen in Armorican _guasta_ and Ital. _guastare_, as compared with Lat. _vastare_, Eng. _waste_; and in the Eng. _quick_, Goth. _quivs_, Lat. _vivus_. In Erchempert's Historia Langobardorum, 11, Pertz, III. 245, we find _Ludoguicus_ for _Ludovicus_. Not only is this relation a common one, but there are plenty of specific instances of it in the case of _Wodan_. In Germany we have the town names of _Godesberg_, _Gudenberg_, and _Godensholt_, all derived from _Wodan_. In the Westphalian dialect, _Wednesday_ ("day of Wodan") is called _Godenstag_ or _Gunstag_; in Nether-Rhenish, _Gudenstag_; in Flemish, _Goenstag_. See Thorpe, Northern Mythol. I. 229; Taylor, Words and Places, 323; and cf. Grimm, Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, 296. The Westphalian Saxons wrote both _Guodan_ and _Gudan_. _Odin_ was also called _Godin_ (Laing, Heimskringla, I. 74), and Paulus Diaconus tells us that the Lombards pronounced _Wodan_ as _Guodan_. In view of such a convergence of proofs, I am surprised that attention was not long ago called to this etymology.
Wodan was originally the storm-spirit or animating genius of the wind, answering in many respects to the Greek Hermes and the Vedic Sarameyas. See my Myths and Myth-makers, 19, 20, 32, 35, 67, 124, 204; and cf. Mackay, Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews, i. 260-273.
M. M., Myths and Myth-makers, 1872; C. P., Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 1874; U. W., The Unseen World, 1876; D., Darwinism and Other Essays, 1879; E. E., Excursions of an Evolutionist, 1884; D. M., The Destiny of Man, 1884; A. P. I., American Political Ideas, 1885.