ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1120 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1120 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* From: 30 Jul 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wrote to us for information about Polish names from the early 12th century. Specifically, you were interested in the given name , and needed information to help you construct a complete name. We found the name only once in our sources as the name of an 11th century duke/prince of Masovia. He seems to have been of 'ignoble stock' and to have made himself duke [1]. Normally, a name like is a Slavic name. Typical patterns for such names are "dithematic", that is, they are constructed from a set of first elements called "protothemes" and a set of second elements called "deuterothemes". The element '-slaw' is a common deuterotheme, but we could not find any other names with a protheme like 'ma-'. Therefore, the name is more of an oddity than a typical Polish name, and since you indicated you were willing to consider other options, we would recommend against this name. We found evidence that the form may come from an old form of the modern name , where the {l/} represents a later Polish letter that looks like an 'L' with a short slash through it. We found the following spellings for your period (the 'L' indicates a Latinized spelling) [1]: L 1153 L 1239 "son of " 1245 L 1257 L 1257 L 1391 We found the following additional spellings in Russian contexts [2]: 965 965 a Polish prince. L 1241 Based on this, we would recommend or as the most likely Polish spellings, both pronounced \METS-i-slahv\. Since most records in your period were written in Latin, you may want to know the Latin form of your name; we recommend or . If this particular name does not appeal to you, there is also a list of some Polish names in our on-line Library at: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/walraven/polish/ If you specifically want an early 12th century name, we recommend that you choose four or five names from the "Slavic origin" section of this page and write back to us for spellings appropriate to your period. To have a complete name, you will also need to choose a byname. A byname is an informal phrase used to further designate individuals from others with the same given name. The typical European byname for your period would be one of the following: (a) patronymic -- a byname formed from the name of your father. The easy part of using a patronymic is that you can again use the on-line list of Polish names cited above to select a name for your father. The difficulty is that Polish grammar is complicated. One stereotypical Slavic patronym is formed by adding '-ow' to your father's name, but Polish is a bit more complex than that. You would probably need to find an early Polish expert or consult us again for proper constructions. (b) occupational -- a byname formed from your profession. Though this was common in Poland, you indicated that your persona was of noble blood, so this would not be appropriate. (c) locative -- a byname indicating where you live, or the estate you own. You indicated in your letter to us that your persona was a minor nobleman from the vicinity of Poznan'. If you were from the 15th century, we could easily suggest or , since the ending '-ski' was commonly used for locatives by that time, but in your period this was not the case. The city of Poznan' has existed since at least the 10th century [3] and could be used in a locative byname. For the early 12th century, we're not entirely certain what form would be appropriate, but we can suggest [1,4]: L or * * * * * The 'L' above indicates a Latinization. This could be combined with the Latin form of a given name to make a nice documentary form, for official records. For a truly Polish spelling, such as would be used in informal speech, you should choose the Polish form of a given name and a byname that has not been Latinized. The '*' indicates the forms ending in <-czik> or <-czyk>. These forms literally mean "son of Poznan", and might refer to someone who comes from the city of Poznan', or whose father was named . We should note that we did not find any of these forms dated before 1400, but the given name dates from 1224, so they should be reasonable for your period [1]. The literature frequently states that locative bynames in Poland were the privilege of the noble class, and indicated rulership or ownership [5,6,7]. While this has been consistently reported, we have not seen evidence presented to support this assertion. The same assertion is often made for French and German names, but is certainly not true in that case. You may want to consider this before deciding on a locative. There are a few other kinds of bynames -- those that describe a physical feature such as hair color or body size. If you would rather have one of these than a patronymic or locative byname, please feel free to write us again. Be sure to specify one or more features, and we will look for an appropriate form for your period. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Talan Gwynek, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum, Ethini ingen Cormacc, Arval Benicoeur, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, and Teceangl Bach contributed to this letter. In service, --Walraven van Nijmegen Academy of S. Gabriel [1] W. Taszycki, _Slownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_, 7 vols. (Wroclaw, 1965-1983) s.nn. Miecis{l/}aw, Miec(s){l/}aw, Mies{l/}aw, Poznan'chyk [2] Paul Wickenden of Thanet, _A Dictionary of Period Russian Names_ (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1996) http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/ [3] _Knaurs Konversationslexikon A-Z_ (Berlin: Th. Knaur Nachf., 1932) s.n. Posen [4] Jo'zef Bubak, _Slownik Nazw Osobowych I Elementow Identyfikacyjnych Sadecczyzny XV-XVII w._, 2 vols. (Krakow: "Universitas", 1992) [5] Edward A. Peckwas, _Collection of Articles on Polish Heraldry_, p. 2 (Polish Genealogical Society: Chicago 1978). The use of surnames was originally a status symbol. A great deal of these early names were taken from the users [sic] place of residence of property called placenames. In Poland some of these names came into being in the 13th Century, but the majority of early Polish names date to the 15th Century. Unlike using the placename in its proper form, the Polish Noblemen added "ski" to the ending. This indicated that they not only lived in the place whose name they adopted but actually owned it. [6] William F. Hoffman, _Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings_, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Polish Genealogical Society, 1993) Hoffman says that it is generally believed that 'z' and '-ski' constructions were used to indicate ownership of estates the way 'de' was used in France and 'von' was used in Germany. [7] Unbegaun, B.O. _Russian Surnames_ (Oxford: At the University Press, 1972) Unbegaun (19-21) first discusses *Russian* names in <-skij>, <-skoj>, <-ckij>, and <-ckoj>. These were adjectival local names whose 'bearers were princes or landowners, all members of the aristocracy or the gentry, who took the names of their principalities, apanages, patrimonies, or estates'. Such names were rare because there were few hereditary patrimonies. 'The situation was quite different in Poland where, from very early times, the gentry owned hereditary estates. This accounts for the abundance of Polish local surnames in <-ski>. The prestige of such surnames led to the frequent adoption of the ending <-ski> by the bourgeoisie -- a tendency which considerably increased the number of surnames of this type and made of them Polish surnames *par excellence*.' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, 26 Feb 2005: Corrected the author's name in note [2].