blood as opposed to the dubious pedigree of locals. Historical significance The origin and meaning of the name of the Goths is often considered of great significance to research on the origins of the Goths. On the basis of name evidence, Piergiuseppe Scardigli writes that is impossible to deny that there was a relationship between the Geats and the Goths. Based on the similarity between the Gothic name and those of the Gutes and Geats, scholars such as Wolfram have suggested that the Goths may have been an offshoot of either of these peoples. Wolfram means this not in a "biological" sense, but in the sense that "prestige bearing names" could be carried between groups of people. Anders Kaliff and Ludwig Rübekeil suggest that the Goths, Gutes and Geats were rather all at one point part of the same community of merchant-warriors active on both sides of the Baltic Sea. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon suggested that the name of the Goths, Gutes and Geats may originally have been applied to a northeastern Germanic group native to Scandinavia, who were distinguished from more southwesterly Celtic-influenced Germanic tribes known as Teutones. Such a distinction might be reflected in the conflicts between the Æsir and Vanir in Norse mythology. The Vanir were particularly revered in Sweden (see Yngvi and Freyr), while the Sagas record that Odin and the Æsir came to Scandinavia from the south. This supposed rift might be the reason why it has been difficult to document any common endonym among the early Germanic peoples. Other names When mentioned by Greco-Roman scholars from the 3rd century AD, the Goths are frequently referred to as Scythians. Already in the first half of the third century, Dexippos, whose writing has only survived in fragments, referred to the Goths of his time as Scythians, although from the surviving fragments he did not necessarily intend to assert that they had common origins. Starting in the 4th century authors such as Claudian, Orosius, Saint Jerome and Augustine of Hippo making a simpler equation between the Goths to the Getae, a tradition followed later by Cassiodorus, Jordanes and Isidore of Seville. However, modern historians have concluded that this equation is certainly incorrect. In the late 4th century AD, Ambrose equated the Goths to Gog in the Book of Ezekiel, who was associated with barbarians from the north. Isidore of Seville later suggested that this proposal must have been