Etymology of Wicca Weekly Scotsman", in response to the popularisation of Margaret Murray's witch-cult hypothesis in Scotland, that "the Saxon word 'wicca', a witch" was "of immemorial usage" in the Scottish Lowlands. Doyle White suggests that the early Wiccans adopted the term "wicca" as the basis for the name of their burgeoning faith because theirs was a new religious movement that took "iconography and inspiration" from the polytheistic cults of pre-Christian Britain. Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), the man largely responsible for propagating the Wiccan religion in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s and the founder of the Gardnerian tradition, never used the term "Wicca"
Central Valley Wicca offshoot or even a precursor of Gardnerian Wicca, while others suggest that the CVW share a common ancestor with what later became Gardnerian Wicca. According to their original custom, an initiate of Central Valley Wicca was not told who their initiator's initiator was; therefore, the identity of the person who first brought Wicca to the Central Valley remains a mystery. What is known is that she had ties to England and had most likely lived there; she was either British or had close connection to a British subject prior to settling in California. At that time, individual names for "traditions"