ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1362 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1362 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 28 Nov 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for help creating a Norse masculine name meaning that would be authentic for the 11th to 14th centuries. You also wanted to know if was the Latin root of a Norse name. Here is the information we have found. The name was originally a Greek name. When Christianity was introduced to the Norse, they adopted some of the Christian saintly and biblical names. The Norse form was taken from the Latin form by way of Latin and Christian traditions. In our previous letter to you, we were mistaken in guessing that you meant the island of Fyn when you spoke of the island of . We did find a small Danish island named in a modern atlas, [1] but we do not know what it was called in period. Please note the correct spelling, without the umlaut. The structure is a fine formation for a Danish name; it just needs to be tweaked a bit to be authentic. The correct Danish preposition meaning or that would be used with the name of an island is . [2,3] (The slash represents an accent over the previous letter). Assuming that the name was used in your period, would be a fine Danish name. It would be pronounced \NEE-klahs ee FOOR\. 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 Arval Benicoeur, Lindorm Eriksson, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael November 28, 1998 -------------------- References: [1] Bergsten, Karl Erik, ed., _George Philips Va:rldsatlas_, (Go:teborg: AB Kulturhistoriska Fo:rlagen, 1977.), p. 18 [2] _Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn_, Vol. 1- (Uppsala: 1967-. bd. 1, h. 3: isbn: 91-7192-123-8; bd. 1, h. 4: isbn: 91-7192-223-7; bd. 1, h. 5: isbn: 91-7402-044-7; bd. 2, h. 6: isbn: 91-7402-104-4; bd. 2, h. 7: isbn: 91-7402-136-2, h. 8: isbn: 91-7402-115-x; bd. 2, h. 9: isbn: 91-88096-00-9; bd. 2, h. 10: isbn: 91-88096-01-7; Bloms Boktryckeri AB: Lund 1983 bd. 2). [3] Cleasby, R., G. Vigfusson, & W. Craigie, _An Icelandic-English Dictionary_ (Oxford: At the University Press, 1975) s.v.