Prins

I was online on facebook yesterday and wrote
on a Canadian friend's wall.
A friend of his had written before me and her surname was Prins.
It may not be very surprising that the meaning of the word prins is prince in Swedish.
It also means prince in Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and Dutch.
Now, all of these languages are germanic, but where does the word originally come from?

Well, Wikipedia is my friend :)

Prince, from French "Prince" (itself from the Latin root princeps), is a general term for a monarch, for a member of a monarchs' or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in some members of Europe's highest nobility. The feminine equivalent is a princess.

The Latin word prīnceps (older Latin *prīsmo-kaps, literally "the one who takes the first [place/position]"), became the usual title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire, the princeps senatus.

It seems like the French imported the word and from French it spread to most of Western and Central Europe.
I guess it makes sense that the word for Prince became "international" like this, since the royal families often had contact with each other; diplomatic, intellectual or marriage wise.
I find this fascinating!
That the word princeps turned into prince and then it spread through the languages of Europe and turned into variations such as Prionnsa in Scottish Gaelic, Princ in Slovenian and Prinţ in Romanian.

I wish I had a surname that meant something, and had a history like that.
Cedergren is Swedish for Cedar and branch - Cedarbranch simply.
Though you would say Branch of Cedar in English.