ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1152 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1152 ************************************ 21 Aug 1998 From: Braddon Giles Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for our help with a submittor of yours who is interested in the name - but she would like "of the lakes" translated into high German. We are happy to assist, but before I start, I would like to clarify the service that the Academy offers. We try to help Societyfolk in choosing and using names that fit the historical cultures they are trying to re-create. Our research can sometimes be used to support submissions to the College of Arms, but that is not our goal, and our results are often incompatible with the College's needs. The SCA has fairly lenient rules for passing names, so it's possible to pass many names which aren't historically accurate. If your main goal is to register a particular name only, then we may not be able to help you. We prefer to work directly with the client in order to minimize the chances of any misinterpretation when information is passed through a second party. If this request is for a client who has e-mail or web access, we can provide further help to the client if she asks us directly at the same address you did. If not, thank you for passing the query along. Unfortunately, we have not found the name , or its equally valid transliterations or , used in the SCA period as a woman's name. The use of in Germanic languages is quite modern. In Swedish, for instance, we could find no example before 1876. [1,2] The name is a diminutive or pet form of the Russian . In Russia this name appears (as ) as early as 1396, and we found the German form from 1375. However the pet form does not appear in Russian until after our period, and was not exported to other languages until much later. [3,4,5,6,7,8] Coincidentally, there is a masculine name which was in used in Russia in 1539, but it is unrelated to the modern feminine name. So far as we can tell, therefore, was not a period woman's name, and we do not recommend its use. [2] If your client wants to consider some other, period German names, then we recommend she look through the articles available in the German section of our library: http://www.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/#germany We have found no example of , with the plural noun, used as a surname in any period language. In particular, we don't find anything comparable in High German, so we recommend that your client consider alternatives. The singular form, , is more plausible. We find a 1381; his name literally means "in the lake", from the German "lake". If the lady wants her name to mean "of/from the lake", then a good translation is "zum See", pronounced \tsoom ZAY\. The \oo\ here is like that of , not . You may also consider from 1312 meaning 'by the water' and 'at the water'. [8] I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Lindorm Eriksson, Predslava Vydrina, Talan Gwynek, Arval d'Espas Nord, Alan Fairfax, Paul Wickenden of Thanet and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, Giles Leabrook. ----------------------------------------------------------- References [1]Otterbjo:rk, Roland, _Svenska fo:rnamn. Kortfattat namnlexikon_ (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska spa*kna:mnden 29) (Esselte studium: 1st ed 1979, 3rd ed 1996) p 189. [2]Paul Wickenden of Thanet, "A Dictionary of Period Russian Names" (WWW: SCA, Inc.,1996) [3] Bahlow, Hans. Unsere Vornamen im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, Vol. 4 in the series Grundriss der Genealogie (Limburg a. d. Lahn: C. A. Starke Verlag, 1965) s.n. Sonja. [4] Drosdowski, Guenther. Duden Lexikon der Vornamen, 2nd ed. (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1974) s.n. Sonja. [5] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) s.n. Sonia. [6] Dunkling, Leslie and William Gosling, _The New American Dictionary of First Names_ (New York: Signet Books, 1983) s.n. Sonia. [7] Talan Gwynek, _Medieval German Given Names from Silesia_ (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998) [8]Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960) s.nn. Bei dem Wasser, Wasser.