ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1041 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1041 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* From: "S Friedemann" 24 Jun 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You were interested in the name , which you wanted to use for a feminine Irish persona. Here is the information we have found. is not an Irish name; it is English and French. Scholars disagree on the origin of its use as a personal name. It is possible that it is simply the name of the month used as a name [3], or it may be a form of the Old English name , which passed into Middle English as and , and later . was the name of an early English saint [1, 2]. Regardless of its origin, though, itself is not found as a given name until modern times. The closest Irish name that we could find was , which is pronounced \EE-feh\. *** See correction below for information about this name! If you would like to keep the connection to your Irish ancestry, we suggest you consider ; if you would like a name similar to , we suggest you change your persona to English, and go with . Once you have settled on a persona, we would be happy to help you complete your name. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Arval Benicoeur, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Evan da Collaureo, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael June 24, 1998 ------------------------------------------------- References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). [2] Dunkling, Leslie and William Gosling, _The New American Dictionary of First Names_ (New York: Signet Books, 1983). [3] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, 20 Mar 2003: may not have been used by real people in our period. See the correction to 2028 for details.