ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1313 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1313 ************************************ 27 Oct 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for help choosing an name for Scottish Gaelic man living between 1400 and 1600, with some form of as your first name and as your father's name. Here is what we have found. The name probably was borrowed into Gaelic in Scotland in your period, but we can't be sure how it was spelled or pronounced. Few documents were written in Gaelic in period Scotland; the written language of your period was Scots, a language closely related to English and spoken in the Lowlands of Scotland. Most of the evidence we have of Gaelic names in period Scotland is from Scots documents where the names were recorded according to Scots spelling conventions. We found record of a man recorded as in 1484 [1]. This is a Scots form of a Gaelic name something like , where the slash represents an accent on the . , pronounced \STAY-veen\, is one of several Irish forms of the Norman name [2]. We don't have certain evidence that any of these forms was used in Scotland, but is the one most likely to have been transliterated as by a Scots-speaking clerk. is not a Gaelic name; it is a Scots family name originally adopted from a placename. It is first recorded as a given name in England in the 16th century; its use as a first name in Scotland appears to be later [3]. Since is neither Gaelic nor a given name, it isn't a good choice for your father's name. You might want to consider the name , the name that is often anglicized as [1]. It was pronounced \DOO-gh@l\, where \gh\ represents the voiced version of the harsh sound in Scottish or German , and \@\ is a schwa, the last vowel sound in . Late in your period, the pronunciation changed to \DOO-@l\. Putting it all together, you could call yourself "Steimhi/n son of Dubhghall" \STAY-veen mahk DOO-@l\. We believe that this is a fine name for your period. The extra in puts the name in the possessive form, just like the <'s> in English . The patronymic sometimes appeared as . The added in this form reflects a softening in pronunciation of the initial that is often found in Gaelic. Here the \D\ softens so much that it merges with the final \K\ of , and the name is pronounced \mahk KOO-@l\. As we noted earlier, the written language of Scotland in your period was Scots. or might have been written or . 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 Effrick neyn Kenneoch V'Ralte and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 28 Oct 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.nn. MacCairbre, Dougal. [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Stiamna. [3] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).