ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1404
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1404
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25 Dec 1998
From: (Josh Mittleman)
Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You wrote us twice. You first asked about the given name <Bridh> and the
surnames <MacBeth> or <MacBean> as they might have been used by a Scottish
woman around the year 1040. You later asked whether the name <Godith
inghean Bheatha/in> could have been used in the Highlands around 1200.
Here's what we've found.
Unfortunately, neither of these names is quite right. There are a lot of
details to cover; please bear with us.
We could not find the name <Bridh>. It might be an unusual spelling of
<Bri/d>, a modern Irish form of the name of the ancient Gaelic goddess and
saint <Brigit> [1]. <Bridh> might also be a modern Gaelic adaptation of
<Bride>, an English spelling of <Brigit>. The slash in the name represents
an accent on the preceding letter.
<Brigit> did not come into use as a personal name in Gaelic until after our
period. In our period, names of major saints were not given to children in
Gaelic; they were considered too holy for normal use. Instead, children
were often named "servant of" or "devotee of" a saint. <Ma/el Brigte>
"devotee of Brigit" was a common early medieval Irish woman's name and
probably also common in Scottish Gaelic. It was pronounced \mell
VREE-djeh\ [1].
<Godith> is a later form of the Old English name <Godgyth>; it was used in
the 12th - 14th centuries and perhaps even a bit later. <Godit> is an
unusual spelling variant that we've found only in the 12th century. It is
not a Gaelic name and we think it is extremely unlikely that it could have
been adopted into Scottish Gaelic [2]. If you want a 12th century English
name, then <Godit> would be a fine name, but it would be incorrect to
combine with a Gaelic surname. Gaelic and English names were not mixed
together that way in our period.
<MacBeth> is an English spelling of the Gaelic masculine _given_ name <Mac
Bethad> (as it was spelled in the early Middle Ages) or <Mac Beatha> (as it
was spelled roughly after 1200). Because it begins with <Mac>, it has been
misinterpreted as a surname, but in period Gaelic it was a given name [1].
<MacBean> is an English spelling of <mac Beatha/in>, a Gaelic patronymic
that meant "son of Beatha/n". A patronymic is a surname that identifies
you as your father's son or daughter. In Gaelic in our period, no woman
would ever have been called <mac> anything, since she couldn't be anyone's
son. Instead, she could be identified as her father's daughter. The
patronymic you asked about, <inghean Bheatha/in> "Beatha/n's daughter", is
a fine choice, though this is a later-period spelling than you want for the
11th or 12th century. In that period, it would have been <ingen Betha/in>.
In the 11th century, it was probably pronounced \IN-yen VAY-thahn\. In the
12th century, that pronunciation persisted, but was gradually replaced by
\IN-yen VAY-hahn\ [3].
We have very little evidence of what given names were used by Scottish
Gaelic women in our period. Few records were written in Gaelic in period
Scotland, and as everywhere in Europe, women are only sparsely represented
in written documents. We have collected a short list of women's names that
we know were used in period Gaelic Scotland; you can find it on-line:
Some Scottish Gaelic Feminine Names
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/arval/scotgaelfem/
The Gaelic of Scotland and Ireland was a single language in our period, so
it is not unreasonable to guess that many of the names used in Ireland were
also used in Scotland. You can find a list of some Irish women's names on
line, too:
Feminine Names from the Index to O'Brien's 'Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae'
http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html
If you'd like a name that sounds something like <Bridh> or <Godith>, we can
offer a few possibilities [1]:
Bri/g \BREE\
Mael Brigte \mell VREE-dj@\, \@\ is the sound of the <a> in <about>
Gobnat \GOHB-n@tch\
Gormlaith \GORM-l@th\ in the 11th century and into the 12th, \GORM-l@\
in the 12th century and later.
A name like <Bri/g ingen Betha/in> would be a fine choice for your period.
We 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 Talan Gwynek, Tangwystyl verch
Morgant Glasvryn, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
25 Dec 1998
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References
[1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, Irish Names (Dublin: The
Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Brigit, Mac Bethad.
[2] Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English
Surnames_" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997), s.n.
Godith.
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/reaney/
[3] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and
History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. MacBean