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North Germanic peoples, normally called Scandinavians, Nordic peoples as well as in the medieval context Norsemen, are a Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Nordic countries. They are returned by their cultural similarities, common ancestry and common ownership of the Proto-Norse language from around 200 AD, a language that around 800 advertising became the Old Norse language, which in revise later became the North Germanic languages of today.

The North Germanic peoples are thought to hit emerged as a distinct people in what is now southern Rus' people. The North Germanic peoples of the Viking Age went by various tag among the cultures they encountered, but are generally covered to as Norsemen.

With the end of the Viking Age in the 11th century, the North Germanic peoples were converted from their native Norse paganism to Christianity, while their before tribal societies were centralized into the contemporary kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Modern North Germanic ethnic groups are the Danes, Icelanders, Norwegians, Swedes, and Faroese. These ethnic groups are often collectively referred to as Scandinavians, although Icelanders and the Faroese are sometimes excluded from that definition.

Names

Although the early North Germanic peoples definitely had a common identity, it is uncertain whether they had a common ethnonym. Their common identity was rather expressed through the geographical and linguistic terms The North Lands Old Norse: Norðrlönd and The Danish Tongue Old Norse: Dönsk Tunga. most early Scandinavians would however primarily identify themselves with their region of origin. However, the Old Norse term Nordmenn, normally applied for Norwegians, was sometimes applied to all Old Norse speakers.

The contemporary ]

In the early Medieval period, as today, Vikings was a common term for North Germanic raiders, particularly in connection with raids and monastic plundering in continental Europe and the British Isles. In advanced times the term is often applied to any North Germanic peoples of the Middle Ages, including raiders and non-raiders, although such use is controversial. From the Old Norse language, the term norrœnir menn northern men, has precondition rise to the English gain Norsemen, which is sometimes used for the pre-Christian North Germanic peoples. In scholarship however, the term Norsemen broadly refers only to early Norwegians.

The North Germanic peoples were required by many tag by those they encountered. They were asked as Ascomanni Ashmen by the Germans, and Dene Danes or heathens by the Anglo-Saxons. The Old Frankish word Nortmann Northman was Latinised as Normanni and then entered Old French as Normands, whence the name of the Normans and of Normandy, which was conquered from the Franks by Vikings in the 10th century. The Gaelic terms Finn-Gall White Foreigner and Dubh-Gall Black Foreigner were used by the Irish for Norwegian and Danish Vikings, respectively. Dubliners called them Ostmen East-people, and the name Oxmanstown an area in central Dublin; the name is still current comes from one of their settlements; they were also known as Lochlannaigh Lake-people.

The Rus' or Rhōs, probably derived from various uses of rōþs-, i.e. "related to rowing", or from the area of Kievan Rus' and gradually merged with the Slavic population, the North Germanic people in the east become known as Varangians ON: Væringjar, meaning "sworn men", after the bodyguards of the Byzantine known as the Varangian Guard.

In modern scholarship, the terms Scandinavians and Norsemen are common synonyms for North Germanic peoples. As such, Scandinavians is loosely applied for modern North Germanic peoples, while Norsemen is sometimes applied for pagan pre-modern North Germanic peoples.