ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1312 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1312 ************************************ 27 Sep 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! We have received your question about your name. Here's some quick information; please read it and let us know if you'd like us to do anything further. You wrote that you found in one of Albert Dauzat's book. That name appears in his Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Familles et des Prenoms de France, in his entry for . Dauzat discusses both given names and surnames. Here's a translation of the relevent parts of that entry. The [bracketed] comments are my clarifications. + marks a common name. A "patronymic" is a surname derived from a descriptive byname that identified someone's father, like in English. A "metronymic" is a surname that originally identified someone's mother. The notation <-in> means a name with the same root as the previous name, with the suffix changed. So , <-in>, <-ot> means , , and . A slash represents an accent on the preceding letter. Place names in (parentheses) mean that the preceding form is found in that region. Jean +, widespread baptismal name and family name, colloquial form of saint , the name of many saints, notably of an apostle (evangelist) and of John the Baptist, who baptised Jesus ... archaic spelling (from the Latin). [Modern] Feminine form (name of one of the female saints of the Gospel), baptismal name and metronymic ... archaic variant . Many [masculine] hypocoristics [pet forms] and patronymics: +, <-in>, +, <-on>, <-el> (<-eau>), variant <-iau>, <-iaud>, pejorative ; double diminutives , <-ey> (France-Comte/), <-equin> (Nord), <-eret>, <-erot>, (see also +, ... Just from this text, it isn't immediately obvious whether Dauzat found as a surname or as a given name. However, I know that Dauzat's examples are surnames except where he specifically says otherwise. In this case, he lists a group of surnames which derived from various pet forms of the given name ; but the spelling of surnames often continued to evolve after they became surnames in ways that did not happen for the given name. Thus, while we know that derived from a given name, we don't yet know what the given name was. Following his reference, I find more information on , under . ... In Champagne and Wallonia [the French-speaking part of modern Belgium], the old double-suffixed derivative [c, represents a c-cedilla] (of the type ) produced (Cha^tillon-sur-Seine), +, with the parallel form (Aube; in Beaune as early as 1393), generally contracted to +... This gives us a pretty good lead: Dauzat clearly tells us that was a given name, and that was recorded in 1393 in northern France. At that date, even if it were recorded as a surname, it would probably have been a true patronymic, or if it were an inherited surname, it would only have been inherited for a generation or two; so the spelling is very probably one that can be taken as a given name. Further support can be found in Morlet, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, p.25. In a discussion of masculine hypocoristics (pet forms of given names), she has a section on the suffix <-esson>. This suffix appears especially in the north of Aisne and Champagne, in parts of Wallonia and the northwest of Lorraine. It derives from Germanic hypocoristics in <-izo>, <-izone>, such as , , etc. In the Middle Ages, the Romanized population appropriated the suffix to create diminutives of personal names of both Latin and Germanic origin. Her masculine examples: , 14th & 15th C 14th C 14th C , 15th 14th, 15th 14th , , , 13th-15th 13th On p.123, she gives other masculine examples: , , , , , , , . Note that these are all given names. shows that the suffix was applied to ; the same name appears as in the 1292 census of Paris. On p.124, I find , demonstrating the doubling of the in a hypocoristic. In 13th century Lorraine, I find similar masculine constructions: , . These examples from taken from Harry Jacobsson, _E/tudes d'Anthroponymie Lorraine les Bans de Tre/fonds de Metz (1267-1298)_ (Go:teborg: Gumperts Fo:rlag, 1955). is an with an umlaut. Neither Morlet nor Jacobsson shows <-esson> as a feminine hypocoristic suffix, and I think this absence is significant. There are suffixes used by both genders -- <-eron>, <-elot>, Morlet pp.24-30 -- and others that have feminine forms -- <-elet>/<-elette>, <-elin>/<-eline> -- but neither <-esson> or <-essone> appears among feminine names in my sources. Of course, it is possible to postulate a feminine diminutive of + <-essone>, probably spelled and pronounced \zhen-n@-SOHN-@\, where \@\ represents a schwa, the first vowel in . I think the evidence I've gathered would probably persuade the College of Arms to register this name -- though I can't promise that they'll agree with my analysis. However, I don't recommend this name as a good choice if you want your name to be a good re-creation of 13th or 14th century France. We don't have evidence that it exists, and the evidence for supposing that it could have existed is pretty weak. I'm afraid I can't find anything like as a French name. If you like, I can ask the Academy to investigate that possibility further, but my opinion is that it is an unlikely construction for medieval French: I have never seen <-essia> as a suffix applied to French names. If you'd like to consider some other documented forms of , here are a few. Note that final was pronounced in medieval French at least up to the early 15th century. , , , (13th-15th C; Morlet, p.22) , (Lorraine, 13th C; Jacobsson, p.221) , (Picardy, 14th-15th C; Morlet, p.29) (Picardy 14th C; Morlet, p.128) (Normandy, 16th C; Cateline de la Mor) I hope this has been useful. Talan Gwynek and Juliana de Luna helped me with this letter. If you have any further questions or other details you'd like us to research, please write us again. Arval for the Academy 27 Sept 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References Cateline de la Mor, "Sixteenth Century Norman Names" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997) . Jacobsson, Harry, _E/tudes d'Anthroponymie Lorraine les Bans de Tre/fonds de Metz (1267-1298)_ (Go:teborg: Gumperts Fo:rlag, 1955). Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens, Musee de Picardie, 1967). Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987). Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html