ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1492 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1492 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 21 May 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for our opinion of as an Old Norse name. Here is what we found. Old Norse refers to a group of closely related languages spoken in much of Scandinavia during the early Middle Ages. The forms we discuss below are in Old West Norse, the form spoken in Norway and Iceland. is a common Old Norse given name (the slash represents an acute accent over the preceding letter).[1] is a Germanic given name, found in Germany and France but not in Scandinavia.[2] In all Germanic languages, including Old Norse, many names were creating by combining two elements, in this case and <-win>. Each language had its own pools of first and second elements. Old Norse names do not use the elements and <-win>, but do use the related themes and <-un(n)>. These can be combined to produce the hypothetical given name . Another hypothetical given name that sounds a bit more like is , combining and <-finnr>.[3] A man in Old Norse society generally identified himself as his father's son by adding a patronymic byname to his given name. In some cultures such bynames could be simply the father's given name. However, in Old Norse patronymic bynames were made by changing the father's given name to the possessive form and adding <-son> to it, in this case producing or . Both and are plausible Old West Norse names. The first is pronounced \OOLVr OHD-oon-ar sohn\ and the second, \OOLVr OHD-finz sohn\. (Here \OO\ rhymes with , and the lower-case \r\ is barely pronounced.) Old Norse names were written in runes during the Viking era, not in Roman letters. If you would like to know how to write one of these names in runes, please write us again. The spelling came into use in Denmark in the 15th century. However, this spelling seems to have been rare; the most common spellings at that time apparently having been and .[4] At this time some people had begun to use their father's given name without modification as a patronymic surname, rather than the form ending in <-son> that we discussed earlier.[5] If you place your persona in 15th century Denmark, then , probably pronounced \OOLF OHD-fin\, would be a fine name. In summary, or would be plausible Old Norse names in the early Middle Ages in Norway or Iceland. would be a plausible 15th or 16th century Danish name, with a less likely spelling. I 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 Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Hartmann Rogge, Lindorm Eriksson, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Juliana de Luna 21 May 1999 ----------------------------------------------------------------- References: [1] Fleck, G. (aka Geirr Bassi Haraldsson), _The Old Norse Name_, Studia Marklandica (series) (Olney, Maryland: Yggsalr Press, 1977). [2] For France: Morlet, Marie-The/re\se, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Sie\cle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972); I:177b. For Germany: Bahlow, Hans, _Deutsches Namenlexikon : Familien- und Vornamen nach Ursprung und Sinn erklaert_ (Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985, 1990); s.n. Ortwin. [3] Several names with the first element are found in Lind. Fellows Jenson says that <-vinr> and <-wini> are cognates, and that <-un(n)> is a derived form of <-vinr>. The second element <-finnr> is also found in Lind, though not combined with . Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). Fellows Jensen, Gillian, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968). [4] Knudsen, Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Volume I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). [5] Mode/er, Ivar, _Svenska Personnamn: Handbok fo"r universitetsbruk och sja"lvstudier av Ivar Mode/er utgiven av Roger Sundqvist och Carl-Erik Thors med en bibliografi av Roland Otterbjo"rk som kompletterats och omarbetats av Sigurd Fries_, 3rd ed., Anthroponymica Suecana 5 (Lund: Studentlitteratur 1989, ISBN 91-44-29033-0), p. 51.