ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1651 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1651 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 17 Mar 1999 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked about as a name for an 11th century Irishman. With minor spelling modifications this is a fine choice. is a 20th century Irish spelling of a name that was very common in medieval Ireland. (The slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding vowel.) Until about 1200 it was spelled ; after that it was until this century. It was certainly in use in the 11th century, since it was born by a king of Connacht who died in 1118. [1] Though it is now pronounced approximately \ROO-@-ree\, in your period it was pronounced \ROO-@dh-ree\. (Here \@\ stands for the schwa sound of the in or , and \dh\ stands for the sound of in and .) An 11th century Irishman was normally known not only by his given name but also by his patronymic, an additional name element identifying him as his father's son. A man named who was the son of a man named , for instance, would have been called 'Ruaidri/ son of A/ed'. (Changing to is roughly like changing the English name to : it puts the father's name in the genitive (possessive) case.) You can find a list of early Irish masculine names in the article '100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland', which is available on the Web at: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100/ The first column gives the name as it would be used in the subject of a sentence (i.e., in the nominative case). The third column gives the genitive case of the name. To form a patronymic from one of these names, just place the genitive form after the word 'son' as in the example . Any of these names (and especially the most common ones) would be suitable. If you have any questions about this or about the pronunciation of any of these names, please write us again. In conclusion we'd like to clear up a couple of possible misconceptions. First, you mentioned in your letter that means 'red king'. This isn't quite true, though it's a common shorthand statement for one that is true. The name does indeed come from the same roots as the Irish words for 'red' and 'king' and was probably originally coined for that reason, but in historical times given (first) names in most period cultures didn't have meanings. Once a word or compound came to be used as a given name, it was merely a name - a label, as it were, rather than a term with a generic meaning. It might have retained some associations based on its origin, much as the modern name may occasionally call to mind the plant, but no more than that. You also mentioned that your persona was that of an Irish Celt. 'Celt' is not a concept with which your persona could have been familiar: there was no language or culture called 'Celtic' in our period. The word 'Celtic' is used by modern historians and linguists to describe a family of languages and the cultures which spoke them, including Welsh, Gaelic (in our period a single language in Ireland and Scotland, though with regional variation), Cornish, Manx, and Breton. These languages were distinct in our period, and the cultures which spoke them were separate, with no sense of pan-Celtic identity. I hope that this quick letter has been useful; please write again if anything is unclear, or if you have further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 16 March 1999 ===== References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire. Irish Names (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990); s.n. .