Ehwaz
*Ehwaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark e rune, meaning "horse". In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc, it is continued as eh.
The Proto-Germanic vowel system was asymmetric and unstable. The difference between the long vowels expressed by e and ï was lost. The Younger Futhark continues neither, lacking a letter expressing e altogether. The Anglo-Saxon futhorc faithfully preserved all Elder futhorc staves, but assigned new sound values to the redundant ones, futhorc ēoh expressing a diphthong.
In the Gothic alphabet, the names of the runes were re-applied to letters derived from the Greek alphabet. The name of the Gothic letter ? is attested as eyz, which has been interpreted as the Gothic word *???? "horse".
The rune may have been an original innovation, or it may have been adapted from the classical Latin alphabet's E, or from the Greek alphabet's H.