Let us first survey the fanciful attempts. In order to lend prestige to their race, the counts promoted this etymological tale, and still maintained in the 16th century that they had written a document about it on bark and on a cup that had been a gift from Vespasianus, their forefather. But during the Reformation, when a spirit of discovery spread throughout the sciences and historical researchers demanded to see this evidence, it perished. With a hazy understanding of phonological shifts and morphological boundaries, these early interpretations are, at best, naive. Equipped with finer linguistic tools, recent attempts probe more scientifically at the name of this Swabian city.
Many researchers see it comprising a root of Celtic origin and the suffix -ingen .
During the 2nd through the 4th centuries A.D., the area now comprising Southwest Germany was a Germanic world with a Celtic substratum. Before Caesar's Gallic War , the only evidence of the relations between these two tribes consists of personal and place names. These names are partly from peasants, but mostly from city dwellers, especially patricians, knights, noblemen as well as clerics. He cites the city name Reinting , based on the personal name Rihmunt , who in the years 806-818 testified in legal affairs pertaining to the places Frauenfels, Elsenbach, Strogen, and Velden. Goldmayer did not use science to prove himself right.