ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1143 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1143 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 4 Aug 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if was a German feminine name used between 1250 and 1400. Here is the information we have found. We found examples of in Silesia in 1375 and 1383, along with the diminutive (pet name) form in 1351 [1]. They are pronounced \zoh-FEE-ah\ and \FEE-ah\, respectively. In your period, documents were often written in Latin. So even though you had a German name, it probably would have been recorded in Latin. The Latin form of would be . To build a complete name, you'll want to add a surname. In your period, surnames (or more precisely, bynames) were descriptive: a woman was known as her father's daughter, or by the place where she lived, or by her occupation or perhaps some physical characteristic. If you have some idea of what sort of byname you'd like to use and you'd like us to suggest some forms appropriate to your period, please write again and we'll be happy to help. 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 Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, --Arianuia filia Catmaili --------------------------------------- References: [1] Talan Gwynek, _Medieval German Given Names from Silesia_ (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998) .