ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1728 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1728 ************************************ 6 May 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether and are authentic names. This letter is a brief answer to your question. We assume you are interested in Scottish names. Several languages were spoken in Scotland over the course of our period, and names were formed quite differently in the different languages. What sort of name is authentic depends on where and when you want to set your personas. is an English or Scots spelling of the Gaelic name [1]. Scots was a language closely related to English, spoken in the Scottish Lowlands from the 14th century onward. Gaelic was the same language spoken in Ireland in our period. It was spoken throughout most of Scotland until the 14th century, and thereafter in the Highlands and the Western Isles. is the standard Modern English spelling of the Gaelic patronymic [1]. The slash represents an accent on the preceding letter. A patronymic is a surname that identifies a person as his father's child. In period Gaelic, patronymic surnames were used literally: A man would only have been called if his father's name was . The practice of using surnames to indicate clan membership is a modern development. Clans existed in period Scottish Gaelic culture, but clan membership was not reflected in peoples' names. The extra in is a grammatical requirement in Gaelic; it puts the name into its possessive form, like in English. is a fine Scottish Gaelic name for any time after 1200 or so. Earlier it would have been spelled and pronounced differently. Write us if you are interested in an earlier period. In late period Gaelic, it would have been pronounced \#-n@s mahk LYOAT\. \#\ represents a vowel sound that doesn't exist in English. It's similar to the in [2]. \@\ is a schwa, the sound of the in or . Gaelic was very rarely used as a written language in Scotland in our period. If a late-period Gaels' name were written down, it would generally have been in Scots. might have been written , , or . Unfortunately, if you are interested in registering your name in the Society, you'll need to make a change. The name was registered in August 1988. You could avoid that problem by adding another byname. For example, you could register "Red Aonghus son of Leo/d". If you'd like help choosing a byname, write us with your ideas. is an English and Scots feminine name. We have found an example in Scotland in 1616, and several examples in England in slightly different spellings from the mid-16th century onward [3, 4, 5, 6]. It's a reasonable choice for a Lowland Scottish woman in the 16th century, but we don't think it was used much earlier and we have seen no evidence that it was adopted into Gaelic. If you'd like some help choosing a Scots surname to go with it, please write us again and let us know what sorts of surnames interest you. We should note that was a Gaelic masculine surname in our period, and is not at all compatible with the given name . If you are interested in a Scottish Gaelic woman's name, we recommend the following articles, all available on the web: Scottish Names 101 http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/scotnames101.html Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/ Some Scottish Gaelic Feminine Names http://www.panix.com/~mittle/arval/scotgaelfem/ 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael and Margaret Makafee. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 6 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.bn. Angus, Macleod. [2] More precisely, \#\ is the sound you get if you shape your mouth to say and then say instead. [3] Talan Gwynek, "A List of Feminine Personal Names found in Scottish Records" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/scottishfem/ [4] Brooke, J.M.S., and A.W.C. Hallen, A. W. C., _The Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of S. Mary Woolnoth and S. Mary Woolchurch Haw, in the City of London, from their Commencement 1538 to 1760_ (London: Bowles & Sons, 1886). [5] Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/reaney/ [6] Talan Gwynek, "Late Sixteenth Century English Given Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/eng16/