ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1625 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1625 ************************************ 4 May 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for help choosing a name suitable for a man born in Ireland during the late Roman period and living in Roman society on the continent. You were particularly interested in having a first name that sounds like . You also asked about the origin of the placename . Here is what we have found. We'll handle the last piece first. , in Lincolnshire, derives from an Old English phrase that meant either "St. Botulf's stone" or "Botulf's stone church". It is recorded as in 1130 and later in period. This name doesn't date back to the Roman period: In the year 654, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to the same settlement as , another Old English name that means "Ica's hill" [1]. Since that name is also Old English, it would not have been used earlier than the arrival of the Germanic tribes in the late 4th century and in much greater numbers in the 5th. The modern surname , more commonly spelled or , originated in Wales and was carried to Ireland by Welsh settlers in the late 16th century. The ultimate origin of the name is the Welsh word "source of a river or brook". The Welsh family that emigrated to Ireland had lived in the area of the modern Gregynog, Montgomeryshire, and had adopted its surname only in the 15th century [2, 3]. Thus, there's no real chance of finding an Irish or Roman name actually related to your grandfather's name. You described your persona as an Irish boy adopted by a Roman centurion. That probably places you in the Late Imperial period, roughly the 3rd to 5th century. In that period, any member of a Roman family would certainly have taken a Roman-style name. An adopted child would probably have taken his father's nomen (family name) as his own first name, and used a Latinized form of his original name as a cognomen (nickname, epithet) [4]. Our best suggestion is that you take a name of this form. It's worth pointing out that there is relatively little evidence of Irish names from this period, but what exists shows that names were quite different from those used in the Middle Ages and later. You stressed that you want your name to include the sound \BLAY\. You could potentially do that with either of the two parts of your name. Here are the Romen nomina we found that start with that something like that sound [5]: Blaesius Blaesidius Blaesenus Blaesienus Blaesicius Blaesonius Blaesidienus Blaesus In Late Imperial period, the first syllable of each name was probably pronounced roughly like the word . We also found a Roman citizen in Britain, around your period, named . His nomen, , is a Latinization of some Celtic name [8]. Unfortunate, we didn't find any Old Irish names that start with the sound \BLAY\. We found only a few that start with [6]: Bladchu/ Bla/th Bladmasa/n Blathchu/ Blat Bla/thecht Blatchu/ Blathmac Bleidi/ne In these names, the slash represents an accent on the previous letter. We should stress that these names are from the 9th century and later, and are quite different from names used in your period. for example, might have derived from a Primitive Irish name and from [7]. If you'd like to consider other early Irish names to use as your cognomen, you can find a short list of possibilities in Appendix VI of The First Thousand Years of British Names http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/british1000/ It can be tricky to convert an early Irish name into an appropriate form for a Roman-style cognomen. If you pick out one or two, we'll be happy to give you our best guess. For example, if your original Irish name had been , then you might have been known in Latin as . 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 Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 4 May 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Ekwall, Eilert, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names_, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), s.n. Boston. [2] MacLysaght, Edward, _The Surnames of Ireland_ (Dublin: Irish Academic Press Ltd., 1985, ISBN 0-7165-2366-3), s.n. Blaney. [3] Morgan, T.J. and Prys Morgan, _Welsh Surnames_ (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985), s.n. Blainey. [4] Johnston, Harold Whetstone, _The Private Life of the Romans_ (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1903). [5] Solin, Heikki & Olli Salomies, _Repertorium Nominum Gentilium et Cognominum Latinorum_ (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1988). [6] O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976). [7] Thurneysen, Rudolf, _A Grammar of Old Irish_, trans. by D.A. Binchy & Osborn Bergin (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), p.36. The author notes a Gaulish place name , probalby "field of flowers". The element <-chu> is reconstructed as <-cunos> for the 5th C inscription MAGLOCVNI (genitive) and we believe that <-mac> probably implies an earlier <-maccos>. [8] Birley, Anthony, _The People of Roman Britain_ (London: B T Batsford, Ltd, 1979), p.110.