ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1491 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1491 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 16 Mar 1999 From: mittle Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate Aragonese masculine name in the 13th to 16th centuries, with Italian and Latin influences. Here is what we have found. Although the culture of Aragon was strongly influenced by Italian, French, Arabic, and other nearby cultures, names from those languages weren't mixed together with Aragonese names. A man's name might have been recorded in one language or another, but only one at a time. Therefore, an authentic name must be constructed in one language, though it might be translated into others. Most people in period Iberia had only one given name. Double given names appear occasionally in Catalonia as early as the 12th century, but they were rare everywhere in Iberia until very late in our period. The practice of taking an additional name to honor a saint is a modern innovation. Using three given names, as you have done, is unknown until after our period. Therefore we strongly recommend that you choose only one given name, and drop the other two. is a modern Spanish name, of course [1], but we have not found examples in period. It's not impossible that the name was imported from Italy, where you found it used in the 15th century [2], and this is more likely late in period than earlier. However, we haven't found any other names in Aragon that were imported from Italy. Because we haven't found evidence of in period Spain, we recommend you consider a different name. was the most common name in 15th century Castile and was probably also common in Aragon (which was unified under one rule with Castile by that point) [5]. If you want to set your persona earlier, you may want to use , which appears to be the standard Aragonese form in the 13th century [6]. is found in 13th century Castile, and we believe it is also appropriate in Aragon at that point. The name is also recorded in 1237 as [6]. Later in period, the name appears in Navarra as and in the feminine form ; it the rest of Spain, it's more often [5, 9, 12]. Of these three names, the most common in Aragon at the beginning of your period was . Other common men's names in Aragon around 1200 are or , , , , , , , , and or [8]. We don't have name frequency data for later in period, but we suspect most of these names remained in use through the end of our period. The exception is , which was probably rare by the end of our period. By 1600, the common spellings in Aragon were probably the modern ones: , or , , , , , , or , and . is a fine late-period surname. It is a later-period spellings of . (The slash represents an accent on the preceding letter, which was used irregularly in period writing.) The word does mean "hawk", but as a surname it more often derived from the given name . That is to say, it usually originally meant "son of Falco/n". We found an in 1287, and an example of the surname in Navarra in the 14th century [7]. is a later-period spelling that matches the pronunciation throughout your period. The spelling gradually changed over the last centuries of our period to match the pronunciation, and the spelling was dominant in the 16th century [10]. We found a man recorded as in 1538 [9], but this appears to be an exceptional example. The surname was particularly used by relatives of the royal family in our period. A man who was not claiming relation to royalty is unlikely to have been used that surname [3]. In general, a man living in Aragon was unlikely to be named "of Aragon"; except for royalty, such surnames tended to be borne by people who had moved away from their homes. In Aragon, calling someone "of Aragon" wasn't a useful way to distinguish him from anyone else, and that was the basic purpose of medieval surnames. If your persona lives outside Aragon, you might consider the surname , which means "Aragonese" and was by far the more common way to indicate this ethnicity. We found a man named in 1278, so would be an excellent choice for the early part of your period [4, 5, 7, 9]. You might also want to pick a city in Aragon and use it as your surname, e.g. the late-period name . Please note that is incorrect in this context; the preposition is in Spanish. To summarize: The name is not impossible in the 16th century, but we don't think it's very likely. Early in your period, a name like or is a fine choice. For later in your period, or are excellent re-creation. The surname is more likely to have been used outside Aragon. 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 Elsbeth Anne Roth, Talan Gwynek, Alan Fairfax, Juliana de Luna, and Pedro de Alcazar. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 16 Mar 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Arana de Love, Francisca, _Nombres Proprios Espan~oles_ (Barcelona: Editorial Vosgos, 1982). [2] Ferrante laVolpe, _Men's names from Florence, 1427_ (WWW: Self-published, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto [3] De Atienza, Julio, _Nobilario Espan~ol_ (Madrid: Aguilar SA de Ediciones, 1954). [4] Marsa/, Francisco, et al. _Onoma/stica Barcelonesa del Siglo XIV_ (Barcelona: University of Barcelona, 1977). [5] De La Torre, Antonio and E. A. de la Torre, eds., _Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza Tesorero de Isabel la Cato/lica_ (Madrid: Biblioteca "Reyes Cato/licos", 1956). [6] Menedez-Pidal, Ramon, _Crestomati'a del Espan~ol Medieval_ (Madrid: 1971). [7] Diez Melcon, R. P. Gonzalo, _Apellidos Castellano-Leoneses: Siglos IX-XIII, ambos inclusive_ (Universidad de Granada, 1957), p.79. [8] The popularity of these names is reported by Carlos Laliena Corbera, "Los sistemas antroponimicos en Arago/n durant los siglos XI y XII", pp.297-325 in _Antroponimia y Sociedad_: Sistemas de identificacio/n hispano-cristianos en los siglos IX a XIII_ (Valladolid, Spain: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and Universidad de Valladolid, 1995). The specific spellings are taken from several sources: [4, 6, 13]. [9] Romera Iruela, Luis, and Ma. del Carmen Galbis Di/ez, _Catalogo de Pasajeros a Indias, Siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII_ (Sevilla: Archivo General de Insias, 1980). [10] This statement is based on our own observations in a variety of period Iberian sources, including [5, 11], and on Penny, Ralph. A History of the Spanish Language (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p.81. [11] Martz, Linda, Julio Porres, and Martin Cleto, _Toledo y los Toledanos en 1561_, Publicaciones del Instituto Provincial de Investigaciones y Estudios Toledanos, Monografias, Vol 5 (Toledo: Patronato "Jose Maria Cuadrado" del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1974). [12] Carrasco Pe/rez, Juan _La Poblacio'n de Navarra en el Siglo XIV_ (Pamplona, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, S.A, 1973). [13] Menedez-Pidal, Ramon, _Ori'genes del Espan~ol: Estado Lingu:istico de la Peni'nsula Ibe'rica Hasta el Siglo XI_ (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1964). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, 11 Apr 2002, Arval: See report 2497 for related information.