The name “Huguenots” for French Protestants at home and abroad derives from the transferring of a local story from Tours concerning Hugh Capet (d. 996) to the Protestants who met by night. It does not derive etymologically from Iguenots (= Eidgenossen, “confederates,” i.e., part of the Swiss Confederation) but is a diminutive of Hugo. It was used by others from about 1555 and adopted by the Protestants, especially emigrants, as a term for themselves after 1685.
The rise of the party name marks the transition from the Protestant movement to a church that, under the influence of Calvinism, …