ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1649 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1649 ************************************ From: 7 Jul 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us about the Irish feminine name . You wanted to know whether it was a purely legendary name, or if people actually gave that name to their children. You also wanted to know which spellings of the name were historical, and when they were used. This name was not merely that of a legendary figure, but was a very popular woman's name. In fact it was "one of the twenty most popular names in later medieval Ireland." [1] As you seem to have anticipated, the "correct" spelling of the name depends on both the period in question and the language being used. We are not familiar with as a historic spelling -- this may be an error for , which is the most usual Old Irish form. This spelling was probably used until around 1200, when a change in standard spellings began to occur in Irish. is the standard Modern Irish form. It is quite likely that and may be found as medieval spellings between the two -- we don't have any specific examples of them, but there were undoubtedly _some_ transitional forms, and they would have looked something very much like these. is a modern English form of the name. [1] All of these spellings were pronounced \MEHV\, though at a very early date might have been pronounced something like \MEDHV\, where the \dh\ represents the sound of 'th' in . To help you complete your name, you can find a good discussion of the construction of period Gaelic women's name on the web at: Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/ We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Dafydd ap Piers, Zenobia Naphtali, Talan Gwynek, Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, and Arval Benicoeur contributed to this letter. In service, --Walraven van Nijmegen Academy of S. Gabriel 7 July 1999 [1] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990)