ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1606 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1606 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 21 Apr 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether , meaning "Lars Stormbringer", is an appropriate name for a man living in Denmark during the Viking period. Here is what we have found. We assume you used to represent a-ring, i.e. an with a small circle just above it. This character, unique to Swedish, didn't exist until very late in our period, long after the Viking era. In Swedish, it represents a different sound from the plain : is pronounced as in , while is pronounced like the vowel in . is a form of the saint's name (i.e. ) that appeared in Denmark and Norway in the mid-15th century. We found no evidence that any form of this name was used in early medieval Scandinavia. The earliest Scandinavian forms of that we could find are c.1300, c.1300, 1330 [1, 2, 3]. We found in 1319-20, in 1391, in 1448 (in a patronymic recorded as ), 1488, and 1489 [3, 4]. is a plausible name in Denmark from the 15th century onward, but not earlier. The spelling is incorrect. It is not spelled with a-ring in modern Swedish or Danish, and we found no period example which suggests the pronunciation that would have been spelled that way [5]. , which you intended to mean "storm bringer", is not an appropriate nickname for your period. It is a compound of modern Danish words meaning "storm" and "to cause". We are not sure how to express this idea in Old Norse or medieval Danish. More fundamentally, your intended meaning, "storm bringer", does not fit any pattern of byname formation that we can deduce from names of real people. We may be able to support a byname meaning "storm" or "ill weather" [6], but we don't see any way to justify "storm bringer". Therefore, we recommend you choose another byname. If you'd like to consider other possibilities, you can find a discussion of Viking names, with lists of first names and bynames, on the web: A Simple Guide to Creating Viking Age Norse Names http://www.wctc.net/~randomsf/sg-viking.htm 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 Talan Gwynek, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum, Caelin on Andrede, Lindorm Eriksson, and Hartmann Rogge. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 22 Apr 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] 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). [2] Jansson, Sven B. F., _Runinskrifter i Sverige_, 3rd ed. (Uppsala: AWE/Gebers: 1985, 91-20-07030-6). [3] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). [4] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). [5] The example may represent the pronunciation \LOWRSS\, with the \OW\ as in or perhaps like the in modern German. However, it may simply be a learned spelling, hearkening back to the Latin and not really be evidence of a variant pronunciation at all. It could even be an abbreviation for . [6] We found English bynames , 1206, 1297, 1168, 1209, , and "ill weather" 1316. Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.nn. Storm, Tempest, Fairweather. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, 22 Aug 2003, Arval: Re-wrote the paragraph on to correct misinterpretations of the data.