ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1216 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1216 ************************************ 29 Aug 1998 From: Braddon Giles Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us for assistance in constructing and documenting a woman's name in Norse or Icelandic, in the period 700 to 1100. You were interested in the given name , with your father's name either or . This is what we found. Before we start, we would like to thank you for providing so much information about your sources and preferences. Our task was made so much easier, and we hope that we are better able to answer your question to your satisfaction. For your information, the book you used as a source anglicized the names by dropping some grammatical marks from the names. Your choice of given name, , is a very good one. The slash indicates an accent over the previous letter. It is pronounced \AHS-tah\, and is recorded in early histories and continues at least into the 15th century [1]. For your father's given name you were interested in either or . In the is indeed pronounced \y\ as in . As you said you preferred the 'J' to be hard as in , this name doesn't meet your requirements. The Norse form of the name is or , where the comma represents the little backward-comma-shaped hook hanging off the bottom of the ; in Norse it is pronounced like the vowel in . The name is pronounced \YOR-oond-r\, with \oo\ as in and the final \r\ barely pronounced [2]. Your next choice was Thord. The standard Old Norse form is <{TH}o/r{dh}r>, where {TH} and {dh} are the Norse letters thorn and edh, pronounced like the in and , respectively. I will discuss how they were written later. Our research shows that this name was very common in both Iceland and Norway, and that forms of it appeared in Sweden, Denmark and England [2]. Your idea of how to put your name together is basically right. Your patronymic (the part of your name that identifies your father) is formed from the possessive form of your father's given name. Some Norse names have possessives ending in as in English, but not all, and not this one. If your father were named <{TH}o/r{dh}r>, you would be called . To summarize, we feel that would be an excellent choice for you. The name is pronounced \AHS-tah THOR-dhar-DOAT-tihr\, with the emphasis on the capitalized syllables, \dh\ pronounced as the in , \OA\ as in and \ih\ as the in . You have several choices in how to write your name. The genuine Norse representation for your period is in runes. If you would like to represent your name in runic form, we suggest that you view this site, and examine the futhark, which corresponds to our alphabet: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1568/ Your name would be spelled as in the younger futhark, which is appropriate for your period. Simply swap the letters for the appropriate runes, but beware. There are two a-runes and two r-runes in the younger futhark. All three s in your name should be written with the 10th rune rather than the 4th, and both s with the 5th rather than the 16th rune. This spelling is only valid for runes, not latin letters [2]. The normalized form, , is useful if you have to explain the name to someone who doesn't read runes: it's the standard, scholarly form of the name. Thorn {TH} is written like a superimposed and

, drawn with a single loop and extending both above and below. Edh {dh} is drawn like a backward 6 with a cross-bar on the upper limb. There may be times, as in e-mail, when runes and even the thorn and edh are inconvenient or simply unavailable. At such times you may wish to write the name , which is actually one of a number of possible 14th century spelling variants. 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, Talan Gwynek and Arval d'Espas Nord. For the Academy, Giles Leabrook. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ References: [1] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). [2] Fellows Jensen, Gillian, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968).