A lot of times people use the words "rich and powerful" in the same sentence. We usually tend to think that the richer someone is, the more powerful they will be. In fact, the English word "rich" came from Germanic roots that meant "power" or "ruler." The Gothic word for power was reikh- From this we get the suffix -ric found in many Germanic names such as Eric, Sigeric, Wulfric(Ulrich), and Henry(Heinrich). The suffix -ric is also similar to the modern German "reich" which means empire. These words all stemmed from a Proto-Germanic word that means "ruler" or "empire."