ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1285 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1285 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 18 Oct 1998 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked about as a name for an Englishwoman in the period 1000-1050. Our only example of the name in any form is the 1248 citation that you found on the web in the article 'Feminine Given Names in ', so we can't say for sure whether the name goes back to your period. This particular spelling is definitely Middle English rather than Old English and is therefore not appropriate for the period 1000-1050. However, it has every appearance of being a Middle English survival of an unattested Old English name whose classical form would have been . By the nature of Old English name construction, any Old English name ending in the element <-lufu> must be feminine. Such names are not common, but a few examples are known. [1] Names containing the element are also quite rare, but a man named who was living in 1066 is mentioned in Domesday Book, and the name was common enough to have survived at least to the end of the 12th century, mostly as . [2, 3] Its first element, , is related to <-lufu>, though much more common in Old English names. [1] It therefore seems quite possible that there really was a late Old English name , which in your period would probably have been spelled ; it would have been pronounced \CHILD-loo-v@\. (Here \CHILD\ sounds like the word , \oo\ is like in , and \@\ is the schwa, the sound of in .) is a locative surname, i.e., one derived from a place-name. In most cases it probably derives from Lauder in Berwickshire, Scotland. [4, 5] However, there is also a place named in Westmorland whose name was recorded c.1180 as and c.1195 as and ; our earliest example of the personal name, 1184, is from Westmorland and probably means 'William of Lowther', not 'William of Lauder'. [4, 6] To judge by their earliest recorded forms, these two place-names have different origins. Unfortunately, we don't know the source of either name; the only thing that seems to be certain is that neither of them is originally Old English. Consequently, we can't tell how to incorporate either of them into an Old English personal name from that period. A reasonable guess based on the early forms of the Westmorland place-name is , meaning 'Cildlufe [who lives] at Lowther', but we can't offer it with complete confidence. (Please see note [7] for the meaning of '{ae}' and '{dh}'.) It's pronounced \CHILD-loo-v@ at LOWDH-reh\, where \OW\ is like the in , and \DH\ stands for the sound of in . For later periods we can offer less speculative versions of the name. The evidence clearly supports a form like or by about 1175. (The pronunciation of the given name is unchanged; is pronounced \LOWDH-er\.) Around 1250 this name might have appeared as (with the same pronunciation as c.1175). [4] A similar name based on the place in Scotland, however, might have appeared as at about that time. (Here the place-name sounds like the English word .) To sum up: is an educated guess at an appropriate form of the name for your period. is a likely form for 1175 or thereabouts, and and are well supported forms c.1250. Aryanhwy merch Catmael also contributed to this letter. We hope that it answers your question satisfactorily and that you won't hesitate to write again if you have any further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek ===== References: [1] Boehler, Maria. Die altenglischen Frauennamen (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967 [1930]), pp. 164-5, 144ff. [2] von Feilitzen, O. The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala: 1937), s.n. Leofcild. [3] Selte/n, Bo. The Anglo-Saxon Heritage in Middle English Personal Names: East Anglia 1100-1399 (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1972, 1979), vol. II s.n. Leofcild. [The slash represents an acute accent over the preceding vowel.] [4] Reaney, P.H. & R.M. Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames (London: Routledge, 1991), s.nn. Lauder, Lowther. [5] Black, George F. The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Lauder. [6] Ekwall, Eilert. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), s.n. Lowther. [7] The {ae} stands for the -ligature, a single letter formed by squeezing together so that the and the are joined up the centre. The {dh} stands for the Old English letter edh, which looks like a with the top part of the vertical line curving to the left and crossed with a second line. These letters are normally pronounced like the in and the in , respectively.