According to one theory, the Venedes are simply the same as the people now called Slavs. According to another theory, however, the Venedes were a distinct group, either indigenous to the area or simply a separate wave of immigrants. Those who see the Venedes as a separate group generally claim that the Venedes eventually merged with the Slavs, forming the modern Slavic ethnicity. In the medieval times the Novgorodians proudly called themselves "Slovene" (to distinguish themselves from the Kievan Rus) which may be viewed as the combination of two words: "slava" ("glory"), a derivative from "slovo" ("word"), and "vene" ("veneti"?). There is strong archeologic and anthropologic evidence of several waves of immigrants from the south-western Baltic regions who settled in Novgorod lands.
The linguistic study of the term "Venedes" is similarly controversial. Hypothetically related names or variations are "Wends", "Veneti", "Veneds", "Venetkeni", "Venetkini", "Venedi", "Vinedi", "Vendi", "Venethi", "Sclavi", "Sclavini", "Sclaveni", "Slovonici", "Slobenoi", "Wenets", "Venets" and "Wenetes".
Interestingly, the name for Russia in Finnish is Venäjä (Vene in Estonian) which is believed to be derived from the name of Venedes. Some believe that this indicates that the ancient Finns "recognized the linguistic ties of the ancient Venedes with Eastern Slavs". It has been seen as a proof of direct contacts between ancient Finnic and Slavic peoples.
Jordanes identified the Venedes with the Sclaveni (Slavs), but there is much dispute whether this identification represented some reality or was merely a misidentification.
By one old hypothesis Venedes were the Proto-Slavs (the same root as in the name of Wends), an Aryan folk from Sorbian culture along the Amber Path who conquered and settled the region between the Baltic Sea and Adriatic Sea. The word *sloveninъ 'Slav', *slovene in Proto-Slavic means Slavs and is derived from one basis *slov- known in geographical names and is preserved in names of rivers Lithuanian Šlave, Russian Sluja, Polish Sława, Sławica. Very similar is also Croatian, Serbian slavelj, slavina 'bung, 'pipe'. If a hypothesis is correct *Slovene firstly meant *'inhabitants along the river *Slova or *Slovy '. Proto-Indo-European basis is *klou- 'to wash, to rinse', and is known, for example, in Latin cluere 'to clean, to wash', Lithuanian šluoti 'to clean, to wipe'.
After older interpretation, which is weaker in word formation and stronger in meaning, the name of the nation *slovene might be derived from Proto-Slavic *slovo 'word' If this surmise is correct regardless to word formation, the name of the nation primarily meant something like *'people, to whom is possible to talk and who understand our language'. It could be opposed to the word nemtsy (i.e., "mute ones") for foreigners in general and Germans in particular.
Another common claim is that the Venedes of the Vistula region were the same as the Italic Veneti who lived along the north Adriatic coast---a theory which is dismissed by many Western scholars, due to "no evidence whatsoever" indicating such an identification (see Veneti (disambiguation)). Nevertheless, some Slavianophile (Slavophile) scholars not only identify the Baltic Venedes and the Italic Veneti, but successfully read even the Etruscan (selfname Rassena\\Rasenna\\Rasna) inscriptions.