‘Jersey’

Could this name be of Phoenician origin?

The name in fact means ‘Geirr’s island’, a clearly Norse name. However the close similarity between Jersey and Caesaria, the Roman name for an important island in this area, leads many to believe that this Geirr is a ghost and the Norse name is in fact a folk-etymology based on the earlier name. ‘Jersey’ and ‘Caesaria’ are one and the same.

But is Caesaria too a ghost name?

The Arabic word for ‘island’ is jazirah, which sounds very much like ‘Caesaria’. Of course, the name cannot be based on any Arabic word. However, in Hebrew the equivalent of ‘j’ is ‘g’, and Hebrew is more a less a dialect of Phoencian.

That the name has a history Jersey < Caesaria < *Gezir is, I suggest, linguistically plausible to anyone but a language lawyer, and it is certainly historically plausible.

Was Jersey once simply ‘the island’ to the far north of the Phoenician Atlantic trading route, the place where tin and wine and pots were exchanged and brought back to the great colony at Gadir (> Cadiz)?