Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 161

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 161

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/161

This is one of the Academy's earliest reports. We are not confident that these early reports are accurate. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we were able to find out about the name "Kiersten of Bergenthal," and the other information you asked about.

Since you have a detailed persona story, we can give you some detailed information. We have to start with some bad news--the name "Kiersten" is very unlikely for your persona. Since you're born and raised in a German-speaking area, you would almost certainly have had a German name. Because names were not fixed, they were generally always translated into the local form. This is true even for very famous people--for example, Johan Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, was known as "Jean de Boheme" in France. If your persona travelled from Germany to Sweden, it's entirely possible that she would have used "Kiersten" in Sweden and a German form of the name in Germany, but the second name or "byname" would also change between German and Swedish.

It is perfectly acceptable to use "von Bergental" as part of your persona name. In period, "von" had no special significance. The idea that "von" implied ownership or nobility is a post-period one. However, since "Bergental" is an SCA place, and not a historical one, you may want to consider using some other name.

One of our members indexed the women's names from a collection of Swedish documents written between 1286 and 1310. The most common names on this list were Margareta (used by ca 30 women), Ingeborg, Katarina, Cristina (ca 20), Cecilia, Ingegerd, Helena, Ingrid, Ragnfrid, Ragnhild (ca 10 each). Together, these names made up 68% of all the names recorded. Your persona or her mother would have been likely to use any of these names in Sweden. In Germany, the German forms of these names would have been used.

Although we don't have a list of German men's names, it's not difficult to find a list of common ones. German names could come from a variety of sources. Swedish names tended to be patronymics--for women, the usual form was <name> <father's name>dottir. Matronymics, which use the mother's name, were rare but not unheard of.

If you're looking for a registered name, you should choose one that is either German or Swedish. It would be appropriate for your persona to use both, depending on the situation, but not to use a combination of German and Swedish elements in one name.

Lindorm Eriksson, Arval D'Espas Nord, Evan da Collaureo, Zenobia Naphtali, Hartmann Rogge, Walraven van Nijmege, Rouland Carre, and Ivanor of Sighty Crag all contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel