ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1518 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1518 ************************************ 08 Apr 1999 From: Jodi McMaster Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether the name was appropriate for a Portuguese man living between 1400-1600 C.E. The name is Spanish rather than Portuguese. In Portuguese, we found the following forms of the name in 14th, 15th, and 16th century records, listed here from most common to least: , , , , , or . [1, 2] (The "~" represents a tilde over the vowel before it, indicating a nasalized vowel.) is a mixture of two languages, Spanish and French. The modern Spanish form is and the modern Portuguese form is . Although it is two words, it has always been treated as a single, compound name. Such compound names were rare in Iberian languages before 1600, but we did find one Portuguese example in 1591: [3]. This is a modernized spelling of , not necessarily the one used in the 16th century; however, we did find the spelling in the 1693 Portuguese version of the Bible, which leads us to believe that this spelling was probably in use in the late 16th century. [4] The last name, , is in a Latin form. We found one 12th century example of the Portuguese as a place name in a land grant of a place called . [5] The name is apparently derived from the word for "Olive Tree." Place names were commonly the basis of surnames, originally used by people who lived there and later inherited as family names. You could use the place name as your surname with or without the preposition 'from', so we can recommend two choices for your name: or . We hope this letter has been helpful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Talan Gwynek, Alan Fairfax, Blaise de Cormeilles, Juliana de Luna, Arval d'Espas Nord, Walraven van Nijmegen, Roxanne Joslin, and Pedro de Alcazar contributed comments and/or research for this letter. For the Academy, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum April 8, 1999 __________________ References: [1] Juliana de Luna, "16th Cent. Portuguese Names." Publication Pending. [2] Juliana de Luna, "Portuguese Names 1350-1450" (WWW: J.Mittleman, 1998), URL: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/juliana/portuguese/ [3] Rod Thorn, "The Order of Christ after Prince Henry" (WWW: R. Thorn, accessed 3/21/99), URL: http://www.thornr.demon.co.uk/kchrist/afterde.html [4] Private correspondence of March 29, 1999 with Jacquelyn Sapiie, Reader Services Librarian, American Bible Society. [5] Symington, Martin, _Portugal with Madeira and the Azores_ (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1997).