The meaning and origin of the word "Germanus" is uncertain. The tradition that was current when Tacitus collected information for Germania held that the name was for a single group of people who crossed the Rhine from the East, drove out the Gauls from a region in eastern Belgium, settled there and became known as the Tungri.

The term "Middangeard" means Middle Earth - but not in the meaning of the books written by JRR Tolkien. It refers to the land between the seas; the heartland of the vast area of northern Europe occupied by the early Germanic peoples was the great expanse of lowland which extends from the Netherlands to western Russia.