ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1408 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1408 ************************************ 9 Dec 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about which you'd like to use as a name for a 15th or 16th century Italian woman. This letter is a brief answer to your question. As you found, is recorded as a woman's given name three times in the 1427 census of Florence. is recorded once as a patronymic (byname that identifies someone as her father's child). It is variant of , which appears 10 times as a man's given name and 10 times as a patronymic [1, 2, 3]. Unless you especially prefer the spelling , we recommend you use the more common spelling. In the earlier part of your period, it was most common for a man or woman to be known as his or her father's child. The standard construction, at least in Tuscany, was to join the two names with . Thus, was understood to mean "Lisabetta, Marchionne's daughter". If your father were important, people might identify you by his full name, like or even in very formal circumstances. In these examples, is a family name. You can find a list of family names from your period on the web: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/family_names.html Some of the names on that list have been truncated to ten letters. If you pick a name ten letters long, feel free to check with us to be sure that it hasn't been chopped. Toward the end of your period, the Italians began to use family names more often than true patronymics, so that would be appropriate at that point [4]. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. Talan Gwynek assisted me in preparing this letter. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 9 Dec 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/catasto>. [2] Ferrante laVolpe, _Men's names from Florence, 1427_ (WWW: Self-published, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto [3] Herlihy, David and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480", Machine readable data file. Online Catasto of 1427 Version 1.1. Online Florentine Renaissance Resources: Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1996 http://swansong.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/overview.html [4] Borgia, L., et. al., eds., _Le Biccherne : tavole dipinte delle magistrature senesi (secoli XIII-XVIII)_ (Roma : Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1984), passim for examples of names.