Danube name meaning "strong, swift" (akin to Sanskrit "iṣiras" "swift"). In Latin, the Danube was variously known as ' or as '. The Dacian/Thracian name was "Donaris" for the upper Danube and "Istros" for the lower Danube. The Thraco-Phrygian name was "Matoas", "the bringer of luck". The Latin name is masculine, as are all its Slavic names, except Slovenian, (the name of the Rhine is also masculine in Latin, most of the Slavic languages, as well as in German). The German "Donau" (Early Modern German "Donaw, Tonaw", Middle High German "Tuonowe") is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the
Danube Hills Danube Hills The Danube Hills (), also variously called the Vorderer Forest, Anterior Bavarian Forest or Vorderer Wald ("Vordere Bayerische Wald"), is part of the Bavarian Forest, a low mountain range in Germany. In older geographical-regional literature the German name "Vordere Bayerische Wald" was applied to the whole southern chain of the Bavarian/Bohemian mountains between the Danube and the Regen, from the Keilberg Depression near Regensburg to the Austro-German border near Passau. Bernhard Grueber and Adalbert Müller described it in 1846 as the "äußern Wald" ('outer forest') "named the Regen Mountains by the geographers". Others chose the name Danube Hills