ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1116 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1116 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 29 Jul 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You were looking for a feminine name similar to , or perhaps , that was used in Byzantium, Greek, Romany, or Italian cultures, looking specifically at Pera, the Italian suburb of Istanbul, in the Renaissance. Here is the information we have found. A bit of general Society advice: don't try to make your persona justify everything you do in the Society. It can't be done and will only result in your persona being historically impossible. There's nothing wrong with a person from one culture using armor or clothing or whatever else for a different culture. Travelers have always adopted interesting ideas they've seen in their travels. Byzantium continued to rule parts of Italy through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance; placing your persona in this area would include many of the things you're interested in. and are Italian forms of . We have found only one instance of ; was more commonly used, but either are likely to have been used in later period Italy. is also an Italian given name, and is an excellent choice. [1,2,3] In most times and places in period, people used only one given name. The use of a second given name, i.e. a middle name, was only seen late in period, and was never common. It would be better recreation to use just one name as your given name. Last names, too, were not used until late in our period as they are today. Instead of a fixed surname that passed from father to child, most cultures used bynames instead: an identifying nickname of some type. There were a number of different types of bynames; locative bynames were nicknames based on place of residence, patronymic bynames were bynames based on the father's name. Since you haven't settled on a specific time or place yet, we can't give you much specific advice on the form of your name. If you decide to be Italian, you might want to use , which would have been an appropriate name in most of Italy through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It means literally "Simona of Francesco," and would have been understood to mean "Simona, daughter of Francesco." 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 AElfwyn aet Gyrwum, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael July 29, 1998 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Rhian Lyth, "Italian Renaissance Women's Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996) URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/italian.html. [2] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from Thirteenth Century Perugia" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). [3] Herlihy, David and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480", Machine readable data file. Online Catasto of 1427 Version 1.1. Online Florentine Renaissance Resources: Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1996 URL:http://swansong.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/overview.html.