ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1691
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1691
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7 Apr 1999
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Anne Wallace> is an appropriate name for a Scottish
Gaelic woman in the 14th to 16th centuries.  This letter is a brief answer
to your question.

Starting in the late 14th century, there were two main languages spoken in
Scotland: Gaelic, spoken in the Highlands, and Scots, spoken in the
Lowlands, including the royal court and towns. Gaelic is the same language
spoken in Ireland at this time; Scots is closely related to contemporary
English. Names were formed quite differently in the two languages, and the
two styles of naming did not mix. Therefore, the culture you choose for
your persona will determine how your name should be constructed.

<Anne Wallace> is a fine 16th century Scots (Lowland) name, but it is not a
Gaelic name.  We've found Lowland examples of <Anne> in 1529 and 1586, and
one of <Anny> in 1408 [1].  <Wallace> is the standard modern spelling of a
name that appears in many forms in Scots records of your period [2]:

  Robert Wallays c.1334,1336
  Walays, 1369
  John Walays, 1372
  Walas, 1403
  Walace, 1432
  Sir John Wales, 1444
  Walles, 1487
  Vallas and Valles, 1497
  Wallas, 1497
  Wallis, 1518
  Wallass, 1531
  Valace, 1589
  Vallace, 1560

We didn't find an example of <Wallace>, but it is certainly a reasonable
extrapolation from this data.

Neither <Anne> nor <Wallace> is a Gaelic name.  If you would prefer to
choose a Scottish Gaelic name, you can find some information on that
subject on the web.

  Scottish Names 101
    http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/scotnames101.html

  A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names
    http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.html

  Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames 
    http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/

  Some Scottish Gaelic Feminine Names
    http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/scotgaelfem/

I should warn you that we have found only a few Scottish Gaelic women's
names in period records.  Few documents were written in Gaelic in period
Scotland, and women's names are less common than men's in most period
documents.  As a result, we only have solid evidence for a handful of
names, which at listed in the last of the articles listed above.  We
believe that a most of the common Gaelic given names used Ireland were also
used, at least occasionally, in the Highlands.  In particular, the name
<A/ine> was common in Ireland in your period and may also have been used in
Scotland.  It isn't the same name as <Anne>, but it is pronounced rather
similarly -- \AHN-yeh\ -- and may well have been popularly associated with
<Anne> [1].  The slash in the name represents an accent on the <A>.

We hope this brief letter has been useful.  Please write us again if you
have any questions.  I was assisted in researching and writing this letter
by Maridonna di Benvenuto and Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  7 Apr 1999


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References

[1] Talan Gwynek, "A List of Feminine Personal Names found in Scottish
Records" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996).  <Anny> may be a variant of <Agnes>
rather than <Anne>.
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/scottishfem/

[2] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and
History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Wallace.

[3] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The
Lilliput Press, 1990).