ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1112 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1112 ************************************ 30 Sep 1998 From: Jodi McMaster Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked for help choosing a name appropriate for Atholl, Scotland, in the late 13th century. You want to use the name "Adam" and a descriptive name meaning "white streak", and the clan name "Duncan". You also asked about your design for your arms, suggesting a thistle on a silver diamond, on a field divided in three parts and in the colors red, green, and blue. In your period, there were numerous languages spoken in Scotland. Names were formed quite differently in the various languages, and the styles of naming did not mix. Therefore, the culture you choose for your persona will determine how your name should be constructed. The area of Atholl is a rather large earldom, but is mostly in the east central highlands [1], which would have been primarily Gaelic-speaking in the late 13th century. However, there are also Scoto-Norman noblemen in the area who would have spoken northern Middle English, with French as a learned tongue. The appropriate form of your name will depend on which of these cultures you decide upon. "Adam" appears in both Gaelic [2] and English [3] contexts. In 13th century Gaelic, it would be pronounced roughly \AHDH-@v\, where the \dh\ is the "th" sound in "this." It was a popular name in Scotland in the 13th century, and in the top three most popular names in English speaking areas overall. [3] You asked for the translation of "White Streak," which we assume you'd like to use as a descriptive byname. We were unable to find any example of this specific byname in Gaelic, although we did find the more general names of 'fair-haired' ("ba/n," with the "/" indicating an accent mark over the previous letter) in Scotland and 'gray' ("liath") in Irish Gaelic. None of these seem to fit what you are looking for. On the other hand, in English there is the byname "Wytlok" or "Wytelok." We don't know if it referred to someone with white hair all over or with simply one lock of white hair, but we thought you might be interested in it if you decided your persona was Scoto-Norman. [4, 5] The use of clan names as surnames is a post-period practice. "Duncan" is an English form of the Gaelic name "Donnchad" (pronounced \DOHN-khahdh\, where the \kh\ is the hard, rasping "ch" sound in Scottish "loch" or German "Bach" and where the \dh\ is the "th" sound in "this."). If you were to use the name "Adam mac Donnchad," it would mean "Adam, son of Donnchad" rather than "Adam of Clan Duncan." Your description of your heraldic design isn't precise enough for us to blazon it, but we can give you some advice. You want to use some kind of three part division of the field into red, green, and blue. We have never seen three-part divisions in Scots armory, and we only know one or two examples in English armory. Your choice of colors for the division is a problem. Fields divided evenly into three parts need good contrast between two of their parts. "Good contrast," in heraldic terms, usually means using "colors" against "metals." Red, green and blue are all "colors" ("metals" being white/silver and yellow/gold), so there is not sufficient contrast. Scottish arms did use the silver diamond, called a "lozenge" in herald-speak, but more commonly they used a "mascle." A "mascle" is a diamond with a diamond-shaped hole in the middle, the hole about half as large as the diamond itself. The Scottish thistle was not found in the arms of private persons in our period, except for one late 16th c. example which was an augmentation from the Crown of Scotland. While the Scots did use a thistle as a nationalistic decorative element in the last parts of our period, they did not extend this use to armory. You may want to look at Foster, Joseph, _The Dictionary of Heraldry_ (New York: Arch Cape Press, 1989) for more ideas about period heraldry. We hope this letter has been helpful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Arval Benicoeur, Zenobia Naphtali, Giles Leabrook, Talan Gwynek, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, and Brad Miller contributed comments and/or research for this letter. For the Academy, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum __________________ References: [1] Peter G. B. McNeill and Hector L. MacQueen, Editors, _Atlas of Scottish History to 1707_ (Edinburgh: The Scottish Medievalists and Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh, 1996). [2] Krossa, Sharon L., "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names", (WWW: Privately published, 18 June 1997) at: http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.html [3] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). [4] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). [5] Jo:nsjo:, Jan, _Studies on Middle English Nicknames_, v.1 Compounds (CWK Gleerup, date unknown).