ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1668 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1668 ************************************ 8 May 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Scottish man in the 11th to 16th centuries, and whether there was anyone famous by the name. Here's what we've found. Over the span of time in which you are interested, there was a great deal of diversity and change in the languages spoken in Scotland. Gaelic, the same language spoken in Ireland, was the dominant language up to the 11th century and remained in use to the end of our period. Settlers brought other languages to Scotland by the 13th century: Old English in the southeast, Old Norse in the north and western isles, and Norman French mostly in the south. In the 14th century, the languages of the Lowlands evolved into Scots, a close relative of contemporary English. Names were formed quite differently in these various languages, and some of the styles of naming changed substantially. In order to choose an authentic name, you'll need to narrow down your choice of time and place, culture and language. is a modern English spellings of the Gaelic patronymic surname "son of Domnall". Names like this one were used literally in Gaelic in our period. That is to say, a Gael would have been called only if his father's first name were . The use of surnames to indicate clan membership is a modern development. There were clans in period Gaelic Scotland, but they had no impact on individuals' names. The name first appeared in Scotland in the 11th century, when it was used by the Scottish royal family. It remained in use among the Normans and later the Scots-speaking Lowlanders [1]. We're not sure when the name was adopted into Scottish Gaelic. We do know how it was spelled in Gaelic, though, from references to David I, King of Scotland. His name appears as in the 12th century, in the 15th [2, 3]. The symbol represents a 't' with a sort of squiggle above it representing an omitted letter, possibly an 'h'. We found two instances that appear to be 13th century examples of used by Gaels. The name is recorded in a Latin, 1273-89. is apparently a Latin form of the Gaelic name , so this David seems to have been a Gael. We also found the name 1271, which appears to be a rendering of the Gaelic name [4]. The slash in the names represents an accent on the preceding letter. On this evidence, we can tentatively recommend or as a reasonable Scottish Gaelic name from the late 13th century onward. It would have been pronounced \DAH-vee mahk DONV-nahl\ in the late 13th century, and \DAH-vee mahk DOW-nahl\ later, with \DOW\ rhyming with . If you prefer to use the spelling , then we recommend you consider a non-Gaelic persona and choose an appropriate surname. If you'd like help making that choice, please write again. We didn't find any important historical in the standard references we checked [5]. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Zenobia Naphtali, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 8 May 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.nn. David, Davidsson. [2] Jackson, Kenneth, _The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). [3] --, A photograph of the "1467 MS", a Gaelic genealogical manuscript, which is shelf-marked 72.1.1 in the Scottish National Library. Colm O'Boyle has kindly helped with our transcriptions from this manuscript. [4] Black, op. cit., s.n. MacDawy and Amendments and Additions s.n. Newtibber. [5] We checked Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster's Biographical Dictionary.