 In literary Slovene and Croatian, "gradec" still means "small castle", forming a hypocoristic derivative of Proto-West-South Slavic *gradьcъ, whichs descends via liquid metathesis from Common Slavic *gardьcъ and via the Slavic third palatalisation from Proto-Slavic *gardiku, originally denoting "small town, settlement".The name thus follows the common South Slavic pattern for naming settlements as "grad".The German name 'Graz' first appears in records in 1128.