ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1305 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1305 ************************************ From: "Friedemann, Sara L" 22 Oct 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if , , or were used as feminine names in any time or culture before 1600. Here is the information we have found. As far as we can tell, both and are modern names. is the name of a Greek mythological woman, the nurse of Dionysus. [1] We have no evidence that was used by people in our period. The most similar name that we found was the Irish feminine [2], which is pronounced \NYAHS-@\, where the \@\ stands for the initial vowel sound in and the \y\ is pronounced as in "yes." It is similar to the names you were interested in. If you are interested in creating an Irish name using , please write again, and we will be happy to help. A number of different forms of are also similar to what you're interested in. The Welsh forms and are found in the 12th and 16th centuries respectively. [3,4] In 15th century Florence we find , pronounced \ah-NYAY-s@\ [5]; in England are the forms and in the 14th and 15th centuries respectively. [6] The 16th century Spanish form is (the slash represents an accent over the previous letter). [7] If you would be interested in creating a name with any of the above as your given name, please write again and we'll be happy to assist you in creating an authentic name for whichever culture you choose. 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 Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Maridonna Benvenuti, Alison Macdermot, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Effric neyn Kenneoch. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael October 22, 1998 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Lyons, Deborah, "Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult" (WWW: Princeton University Press) http://pup.princeton.edu/books/lyons/ [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). [3] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century Welsh Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996) . [4] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century Welsh Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996) . [5] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) [6] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). [7] Elsbeth Anne Roth, _16th-century Spanish Women's Names_ (WWW: Self-published, 1998) .