ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3315 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3315 ************************************ 20 Jan 2008 From: Ursula Whitcher Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether we could recommend a name suitable for a Sarmatian woman. We'll start with an apology, discuss possible given names, and then offer some suggestions for a byname. First, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time this letter has taken. We hope this information is still useful to you. The Sarmatians were a group of nomads related to the Scythians; most of their territory was in the area now known as southwestern Russia. The Sarmatians or Sauromatae were first mentioned in the fifth century BC by the Greek historian Herodotus; Sarmatian tribes appear occasionally in Greek and Roman sources until the invasion of the Huns in the fourth century AD. The Scythian and Sarmatian languages are part of the Iranian language family. However, the Sarmatians did not have a written language. Our information about Sarmatian names is based on histories and inscriptions written in classical Greek. [1,4] Polyaenus, a Macedonian scholar who lived in the second century AD, mentions a Sarmatian queen named , who may have lived around the third century BC. [2] (Here the colon following the letter 'e' represents a bar above the letter. This is one way of transliterating the Greek letter 'eta'.) Polyaenus also wrote about a queen of the Maiotai tribe named , who lived during the fourth century BC. (The colon following the letter 'o' represents a bar above the letter, which is one way of transliterating Greek 'omega'.) This unusual name may also have a Sarmatian root. [3,4] We also found several names with possible Iranian roots recorded in classical Greek inscriptions from towns near the Black Sea. These names may indicate Scythian or Sarmatian influence. The feminine names in our source are: [5] Arite: Leimeie: Mada Maio:sara Saruke: Storane: Tamura In classical Greek sources, people are usually identified using their father's name or an ethnic adjective that describes where they are from. We also found some women identified as their husband's wives. [5,6] The Greek adjective for Sarmatian is ; the feminine form of the word is . The adjective usually follows the woman's name: for instance, a Sarmatian woman named might have been described as . [7] If you would like to choose a name for your father or husband, you can find a list of masculine names with potential Scythian or Sarmatian roots here: http://www.doomchicken.net/~ursula/sca/onomastics/iranianroots.html We'd be happy to help you construct a name meaning "daughter of so-and-so" or "wife of so-and-so"; please let us know what names you'd like to use. If you have any questions, or would like further information, please don't hesitate to write to us again. In particular, we may be able to tell you more about the context in which a particular name was found. Sabine Berard, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Adelaide de Beaumont, Mari neyn Brian, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Talan Gwynek helped to research and write this report. For the Academy, Ursula Georges 20 January 2008 References: [1] J. Harmatta, Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians. (Szeged, 1970; WWW: Vassil Karloukovski). Sections 1 and 10. http://www.kroraina.com/sarm/jh/index.html [2] P.M. Fraser and E. Matthews, ed.s, A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, vol. IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005) s.n. . [3] A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, vol. IV s.n. . [4] Ellis H. Minns, "'Studies on the History of the Sarmatians' by John Harmatta" (The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 72, 1952, pp. 142-143; WWW: JSTOR) http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4269%281952%2972%3C142%3A%27OTHOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V [5] Ladislav Zgusta, Die Personennamen griechischer Sta"dte der no"rdlichen Schwarzmeerku"ste (Prague: C(eskoslovenska/ Akademie Ve(d, 1955). Personennamen mit sicheren Iranischen etymologien. [6] P.M. Fraser and E. Matthews, ed.s, "The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names: Naming Practices" (WWW: Oxford University, 1998) http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names/practices.html [7] Liddell and Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1889, reprinted 2000), s.v. .