The Walloon name comes from the German 'Walhaz' which means foreigner to german speakers.Originally, anyway, they don't seem to have decended from Germanic tribes.Even Germanic tribes are at least partly Gallic in origin anyway, especially in that area (R1b-U152).The 'so called' Germanic R1b-U106 (another haplogroup that is present in Wallonia) is thought to have now originated from the Halstatt area.Halstatt culture is associated with Celts (or were the elite within that culture anyway).Most Celtic / Gaulish etc. cultures are said to have developed from Halstatt or La Tene cultures.R1b-U106 haplogroup is now mostly associated with Nord-West Block, probably arriving from a journey up the Rhine (although there is evidence it being associated with Unetice culture as well which also has associations with the celts, which spread from Bohemia (czech), which is near Halstatt anyway.Unetice culture also spread to most of Germany & Western Poland.The Germani could have originally been more of a Celtic / Gallic culture before the Völkerwanderung.Nord-west block is generally described as a sort of intermediate area between Celtic & Germanic cultures.
I have read on a lot of English-speaking sites that the names Wallonia and Wallons are derived from the German
Walhaz, just like Wales and Wallachia. However that would be jumping to conclusions based on tenuous evidence. The truth is that the term Wallonia does not appear anywhere until the 16th century, and it not used to refer to all French-speaking Belgium, but to the hilly region in the modern provinces of Namur, Liège and Luxembourg (3 out of 5 modern Walloon provinces) and derived from the French word
vallon meaning valley.
In fact it is not historically possible that Wallonia came to mean 'land of non-Germanics' since the region was heavily Germanised since the Franks were allowed to settle in Germania inferior by Emperor Julian in the early 4th century. The Salian Franks, who became the Merovingians, had their capital in Tournai, in Wallonia. The later Carolingian dynasty emerged from the region of Liège (namely Herstal and Jupille), also in Wallonia. The region was a patchwork of Frankish and Latin speakers for many century, from the Late Roman period until the Late Middle Ages. But it is actually the Frankish elite that spoke Latin, because of its prestige status, not the peasants who were mainly Frankish speakers. The Franks were the first Germanic tribe to settle in Roman land, and the only one to do so peacefully as
foederati, hence their early adoption of Latin (I am not going to say as a
lingua franca as that would be ironic). As Wallonia became the seat of the two ruling dynasties that conquered Gaul (Merovingian) and the rest of Germania + half of Italy (Carolingians), Latin spread quickly among the Frankish elite in Wallonia, and this is how a predominantly Germanic-speaking region in the 4th and 5th century turned into a bilingual Latin-Frankish society. As time passed, Latin, then Old French, then modern French kept spreading as they were always associated with the ruling elite and therefore status symbols. This is how Wallonia eventually became French speaking. This has nothing to do with a presumed enclave of Gallo-Romans that resisted the Germanic invasions like in Wales. On the contrary, Wallonia was the political centre of the West Germanic world for many centuries. There are three reasons why Latin became predominant in Wallonia after the Franks settled there:
1) Frankish foederati essentially became part of Roman society and had to speak Latin. Many Franks became influential generals and some became senators in Rome.
The Franks readily embraced Roman language and culture from an early time, and they were eventually the ones who defeated the enemies of Rome who had invaded and plundered the empire (Huns, Burgundians, Wisigoths, Lombards). This is why the Franks saw themselves as protectors and heirs of the Roman Empire and that Charlemagne re-founded the (Holy) Roman Empire.
2)
Latin was the language of the Catholic Church, which was adopted as the official state religion by Clovis and defended by later Frankish monarchs. Indeed both the Holy Roman Emperors and Kings of France later claimed that they obtained they derived the right to rule directly from the will of God (Divine Right).
3)
Latin was the language of the elite and nobility, and the Frankish courts were originally in Tournai and Liège, which helped diffuse the use of Latin even more in those regions in the Early Middle Ages.
Genetically, I have compared the autosomal data of several Flemings and Walloons and there are often more differences between individuals of a same region than between regions. In other words, it's not possible to clearly distinguish the two groups based on admixtures. Some Flemings will even appear more southern than some Walloons.
You are also wrong to say that Wallonia had less R1b-U106 than Flanders. This is what people like you, who see only the modern language divide, expect to see. But it is not what the data shows. You should check my
Genetic history of the Benelux & France. There is far more differences between the Netherlands and Flanders than between Flanders and Wallonia. In terms of undeniably Germanic haplogroups, I1 is at 13% in Flanders and 11% in Wallonia (like South Germany). All the rest is almost identical except that Flemings have more J2 and Wallons more I2a2a (most of which Germanic).
You can see the distribution of R1b-U106 in the Benelux here.
It's true that data from Wallonia is still scarce, but at present the highest percentages in Belgium are found in the provinces of Luxembourg (40%) and Hainaut (31%), both in Wallonia. The lowest is in the province of Namur and Liège, also in Wallonia, but Namur has a remarkably high percentage of I1 and I2a2a (including confirmed Germanic I2a2a-L801). It's hard to believe that Liège would be much less Germanic as it is the only province where German is an official language, that used to be part of Germany (Prince-bishopric of Liège until 1792), and it was the seat of the Carolingian dynasty. In terms of phenotypes, you are more likely to find Nordic looking blonds in the province of Liège (and Limburg, which is in Flanders but used to be part of the Prince-bishopric of Liège) than anywhere else in Belgium.
