ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1263 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1263 ************************************ From: "Rachel Cates " 23 Oct 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to use as a feminine Russian name. You also asked our opinion of the conflict that caused your proposed arms to be returned by the College of Arms. Here is the information we've found: Before I start, I'd 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. If your main goal is to register a particular name, then we may not be able to help you. First let us address your proposed arms. The design you described could be blazoned "Gyronny azure and Or, a mullet of eight points counterchanged". You told us that your submission was returned for conflict with the tinctureless badge of the Chronicler of Ansteorra " A mullet of five greater and five lesser points distilling gouttes". The conflict call was (and still is) correct. A tinctureless badge is protected from conflict as if it existed in nearly every combination of tinctures. The number of points on the star is not considered a significant difference: In period, the number of points on a star often varied, especially when there were 8 or more. In period armory, it was rare to place a charge at the center of a "gyronny" field. It was more common to place charges on each gyron, or on alternate gyrons, or to add a peripheral charge like "a chief". For example, you might consider the alternate design "Gyronny azure and Or, on a chief gules three mullets of eight points Or". The name has been found in Russia in various forms from 988 through the end of our period. This is a fine choice. [1] We have located , dated 1467, as a variant of , a name which is cited from 1262 onward. However, we were unable to locate . The suffix <-iova> and the masculine form <-iov> are rare, so we recommend against this spelling. We recommend, instead, that you choose one of the documented feminine patronymic spellings:[1] Dmitreevicha 1391 Dmitrieva 1456-71 Dmitrovna 1122 We believe that and are also appropriate for your period. is a Russianization of Ukrainian meaning "white horse". This type of compound nickname is frequent in Ukrainian.[2] The apostrophe at the end of the name stands for the soft sign, a Cyrillic letter that has no sound of its own but affects the sound of the previous letter. In this case it indicates that the is pronounced like the n-tilde in Spanish words like or like the in French words like . The construction of Russian names in period was not the same as it is in modern Russian. Although three-part names were used in late-period Russian, they were not used earlier in period and there are other constructions that might interest you. [1] There is an excellent discussion of the grammar of Russian women's names available on the web: http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/zgrammar.html We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please do not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Additional research and commentary on this letter was provided by Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael Caermyrdin, Walraven van Nijmegen, Evan da Collaureo, Zenobia Naphtali, Arval d'Espas Nord, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Eithni ingen Cormacc References: [1] Paul Wickenden of Thanet, "A Dictionary of Period Russian Names" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1996). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/ [2] Unbegaun, B. O., _Russian Surnames_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).