ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1501 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1501 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* From: "S Friedemann" 3 Apr 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if the Biblical citation of the feminine name is acceptable documentation for the SCA College of Arms, and said that you want to use the name for an English persona. Here is the information we have found. Before I start, I'd like to clarify the service that the Academy offers. We try to help Societyfolk in choosing and using names that fit the historical cultures they are trying to re-create. Our research can sometimes be used to support submissions to the College of Arms, but that it not our goal and our results are often incompatible with the College's needs. If your main goal is to register a particular name, then we may not be able to help you. While the SCA College of Arms often accepts a Biblical citation as sufficient documentation for a name, being found in the Bible does not mean that a name was used at all in the Middle Ages; in fact, many of the names were not. We therefore recommend against using the Bible as a source for authentic medieval naming practices. , found in the New Testament, is a feminine derivative of the Latin name . Our first evidence of it used in England is from the 17th century, when the practice of taking names from the Bible was in vogue. [1] Based on this, we recommend that you do not use for an English persona. If you are more interested in using the name than in having an English persona, we suggest you move your persona to classical Rome: is a fine Latin cognomen. Roman names at the time of the republic had a three-part formation. The first part was the praenomen (literally "fore-name"), which corresponds well to the later notion of a given name, except that there was only a very small, fixed set of possible praenomina. As time went by, the set shrank even more and particular families might use only a few of those. This made the usefulness of the praenomen as a personal identifier extremely small. The second part of the three-part name is the nomen (name) which corresponds to our modern idea of a fixed, hereditary surname. This name identified not only which immediate family you belonged to, but identified your connections to a larger extended family. The third part of the name is the cognomen, which originated as a personal nickname of an individual. However, a sub-branch of a larger family might use a fixed nomen-cognomen combination as their hereditary surname. Additionally, an individual might have more than one cognomen serving different functions; he might have a personal cognomen, a name indicating adoption into some family, and the cognomen of his branch of the family. In a formal name, these cognomens were used together, one after another. A few special considerations apply to women's names. Originally, there seems to have been a parallel set of feminine praenomina, corresponding to the masculine ones and women would presumably bear one of these along with a feminine version of the nomen. However, by the later time of the republic and the early imperial period, women appear to have dropped the praenomen and used only the feminine version of the nomen, as well as an ad hoc cognomen, usually referring to birth-order in some fashion. However, under the classical naming system, women at this time did not have praenomina (although traces of feminine equivalents of some of the masculine ones can be found) and daughters were all named with the same feminine version of the family nomen. So all the girls born into a family named Drusus would be called . The birth-order names (and other names) were used more in the function of bynames, to distinguish one from another. So with two daughters, one might be and the other . And if another was born, the second two might end up and instead. By the imperial period, this system was being replaced by a freer choice of something more like true given names for girls. [2] 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 Margaret Makafee, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Maridonna Benvenuti, and AElfwyn aet Gyrwum. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael April 3, 1999 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). [2] Johnston, Harold Whetstone, _The Private Life of the Romans_ (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1903). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction 23 Jan 2001: The bynames and are grammatically incorrect. These words take the same form for masculine and feminine, (or better ) and .