ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1065 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1065 ************************************ From: 2 Jul 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wrote to us about the Lowland Scottish masculine name , inquiring about the proper form for the period 1350 to 1450. The name , or , is a variant of , found in Norway and Iceland throughout the medieval period [1]. While many Old Norse names were introduced into Scotland, those names such as did not remain in use in the Scottish Lowlands or northern England much after the 10th or 11th century. The similar developed into by the 13th century. became and became [1]. Since is a variant of , its 13th century descendent would also have been (11th C) or (1275) [2,3]. However, we do not find any example of used as a first name in England or Scotland after c.1300, and we think it is unlikely to have been used as late as 1350. We found the following forms of roughly in your period [2]: 1296, 1467 1296, 1357 1432 It is perfectly fine to be who lives in Roxburghshire, but it would be rare for someone to be known or recorded as ; your name would simply have been and that is how you would be introduced. However, you might have been identified in an official document with a locative added to your name. A locative is a phrase indicating place of residence or origin, and is usually much more specific than a shire. Shires are large areas, and so are not specific enough to indicate where a person is from. In fact, we have not seen any examples in period Scottish documents that use shires to construct locatives, though there are a few examples using names of towns [4]. Therefore, you could be or in an official document [5], though you would not likely be known by such a name in informal speech. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Talan Gwynek, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Arval Benicouer, and Lindorm Eriksson contributed to this letter. In service, --Walraven van Nijmegen Academy of S. Gabriel [1] Gillian Fellows-Jensen, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968) [2] George F. Black, _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_ (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986) [3] Bo Selte/n, _The Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names_, 2 vols. (Lund, Sweden: Royal Society of Letters at Lund, 1979) [4] George F. Black, _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_ (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986) (p.xxiv) ca. 1431 has three 3-element names: They are , , and . These suggest that might be an acceptable documentary form. [5] James R. Johnston, _Place Names of Scotland_ (London: John Murray, 1934)