The story
- Early Medieval Latin · derived fromHainoavius
- Old French · derived fromHainau
- Middle French · derived fromHaynau
- Middle English · inherited fromHenaud
- English todayHainaut
Inherited from Middle English Henaud, from Middle French Haynau, Haynault, from Old French Hainau, from Early Medieval Latin Hainoavius, from Proto-West Germanic *Haginā (“river Haine”) + *gawi (“district”); the modern form and pronunciation is a refashioning after modern French Hainaut.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.