ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3090 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3090 ************************************ 25 Jul 2005 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked whether or are appropriate as a name for a 10th-century Norwegian man. Here is what we found. Throughout this letter, we'll use some special notation for letters that we can't easily include here. The {TH} represents the character 'thorn', which resembles a lower-case p overlapping a lower-case b, so that they share a single loop. A slash represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. The notation {ae} represents an a-e ligature, which looks like the letters and pushed together. With some minor spelling changes, the names you have chosen are all very good choices for your period. Landna/mabo/k, the Icelandic Book of Settlements, lists a number of names of men who came to Iceland and settled there during the period of roughly 870-930, most originally from Norway, and includes examples of all three names [1, 2]. <{TH}orgri/mr> was common in both Norway and Iceland throughout the Middle Ages. Landna/mabo/k has <{TH}orgri/mr billdr> and <{TH}orvaldr {TH}orgri/ms son br{ae}ki/s> ({TH}orvaldr son of {TH}orgri/mr br{ae}kir). The name <{TH}orgri/mr> is pronounced roughly \THOR-greem(r)\, where the first is trilled a bit, just like in Italian, and the final (r) is a single flap, not a separate syllable. <{TH}orvaldr> was a name that also occurred among the Icelandic settlers, including <{TH}orvaldr Asvalldz son> and the <{TH}orvaldr {TH}orgri/ms son br{ae}ki/s> mentioned above. The name <{TH}orvaldr> is pronounced roughly \THOR-wahld(r)\. The name is found as a byname meaning "horse-fly", and was borne by another settler, <{TH}orsteinn kleggi> [2]. Normally, modern scholars do not capitalize Norse bynames, as shown here. The byname is pronounced roughly \KLEG-gee\. The second \g\, like the first, is "hard", as in English . You can write your name in several ways. In your period, the Norse wrote in runes. You can find several versions of the futhark, or runic alphabet, on the web: http://www.arild-hauge.com/enruner.htm The futhark labeled Norwegian-Danish Runes from the 800's is a good choice. Notice that these tables identify each rune with a Roman letter; we will use that labeling in this letter to give you the runic spelling of your name. We should stress that this is a modern scholarly convention, not a notation that would have been used in our period. You'll also notice that there are no runes corresponding to some of the letters in the name, like and . Just as our letter represents different sounds in the words and , the Norse used one rune to represent more than one sound. Runic spelling was not entirely consistent, but in the ninth and early tenth centuries we would expect to see spellings similar to <{th}urkrimR kliki> or <{th}urualtR kliki>, from the futhark mentioned above. In these runic spellings, represents the tenth rune, not the fourth, is the 5th rune, and is the 16th rune. Remember that this spelling is suitable only when you write the name in runes; it should not be used with Latin letters. You may want to write the name as <{TH}orgri/mr kleggi> or <{TH}orvaldr kleggi> if you have to explain it to someone who doesn't read runes, since these are the standard scholarly forms. When special characters are inconvenient you might write or . In conclusion, <{TH}orgri/mr kleggi> or <{TH}orvaldr kleggi> are fine names appropriate for a 10th-century Norwegian man. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Ursula Georges, Arval Benicoeur, Juliana de Luna, Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn Brian, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, Gunnvor Silfraharr 25 July 2005 ----------------------------------------------------- References [1] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). S.nn. <{TH}orgri/mr>, <{TH}orvaldr>. Here represents the letter a-ring, an with a small circle over the top of the letter, and represents an a-umlaut. [2] Arno/rsson, Einar, ed. _Landna/mabo/k I/slands_. Reykjavi/k: Helgafell, 1948. p. 271.