ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1429 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1429 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 12 Jan 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if the Arabic feminine name would have been used between 900 and 1400. Here is the information we have found. Unfortunately, we could not find the name in any of our references. We did find a masculine name , but no feminine equivalent of it [1]. (The period represent dots underneath the preceeding letters). If you can tell us where you found , we may be able to discover more information. If you'd like to look at other feminine names, you might be interested in the following articles in our library: "A List of Arabic Womens' Names" http://www.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/arabicwomen.html "Arabic Naming Practices And Period Names List" http://www.his.com/~jdalexa/v_d/names.html We could not find any Arabic word , so we cannot say whether is a correct Arabic sobriquet. Arabic women in your period did occasionally use descriptive nicknames of this general form. It wasn't a common practice; we have found only four examples and we're not sure what any of them mean [2]. Women were usually known as their father's daughters or their son's mothers. For example, "Tarifa daughter of Khalil" or "Tarifa, Kamil's mother." 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, Pedro de Alcazar, Da'ud ibn Auda, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael January 12, 1999 ------------- References [1] Dodge, Baynard, _The Fihirst of al-Nadim_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). [2] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Arabic Naming Practices and Names List," _Compleat Anachronist_ #51, "The Islamic World" (Milpitas: SCA, Inc, Autumn 1990; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/daud/arabic-naming/