ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1547 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1547 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 27 Mar 1999 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wrote in behalf of a client who wants to use as a given name and thinks that it is a Scottish Gaelic name of very restricted distribution. The name is very unlikely to be Gaelic: it has the wrong phonetic structure. Thus, it isn't too surprising that we failed to find it in any of the available Gaelic sources. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] More generally, it does not appear in any of the other standard sources for Scottish (but not necessarily Gaelic) given names. [7, 8, 9, 10] The name seemed vaguely familiar to several of us, and the ending <-el> is often a diminutive suffix of French origin, so we investigated the possibility that the name is from medieval literature; here again we drew a blank. [11, 12, 13, 14] The closest we could come was a novel, _Armorel of Lyonesse_, published in 1890 by Sir Walter Besant. [15] Since Lyonesse is a fictional place, this says nothing about actual use of the name. We have only been able to establish that is currently in use as a given name, that it goes back at least to the late 19th century, and that it may have some association with Scotland. [16, 17] We have no reason to think that it is much older than that. Effrick neyn Kennyeoch vc Ralte, Arval Benicoeur, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Maridonna Benvenuti, Teceangl Bach, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael contributed research or commentary. We wish that we could have been more helpful. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 16 March 1999 ===== References: [1] Morgan, Peadar. Ainmean Chloinne: Scottich Gaelic Names for Children (Isle of Skye, Scotland : Taigh na Teud Music Publishers, 1989). [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire. Irish Names (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). [The slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter.] [3] Woulfe, Patrick. Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967 [1923]). [4] O'Brien, M. A., ed. Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976). [5] O/ Riain, Pa/draig, ed. Corpus Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1985). [6] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn). 'Manx Names in the Early 16th Century'. (WWW: Sharon L. Krossa, 1998) http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/manxnames/jonesmanx16.html [7] Whyte, Donald. Scottish Forenames: Their Origins and History (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1996). [8] Mackay, George. Scottish First Names (New Lanark: Lomond, 1998). [9] Dunkling, Leslie Alan. Scottish Christian Names (Stirling, Scotland: Johnston & Bacon Books, 1988). [10] Black, George F. The Surnames of Scotland (New York : New York Public Library, 1946). [11] Chambers, Frank M. Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971). [12] Flutre, Louis-Fernane. Table des noms propres avec toutes leurs variantes, figurant dans les romans du Moyen Age e/crits en franc,ais ou en provenc,al et actuellement publie/s ou analyse/s (Poitiers: Centre d'e/tudes supe/rieures de civilisation me/die/vale, 1962). [Here stands for c-cedilla.] [13] Ackerman, Robert W. An Index of the Arthurian Names in Middle English (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1952). [14] de Weever, Jacqueline. Chaucer Name Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1996). [15] "Besant, Sir Walter" Encyclopędia Britannica Online [Accessed March 8, 1999]. [16] A woman named is a Counsellor at the Health Centre at Kingston University, Surrey, UK. http://www.kingston.ac.uk/users/cc_s416/health/contacts.htm [17] We found on the Web a genealogy mentioning an who emigrated from the county of Wigtownshire, Scotland, in 1900, but the page is no longer accessible.