ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1755 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1755 ************************************ 16 Jul 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Gypsy living in Scotland before 1550. If not, you asked whether it would be appropriate at any time and place in our period. Here is what we have found. As you noted, the surname was used by 16th century Gypsies in the Scottish Lowlands [1]. However, we do not believe that your name as a whole is appropriate for that time and place: is an Italian form of , not Scots or Gaelic, and we have seen no evidence that it was used in the British Isles. As you'll notice from the examples of Scottish Gypsy names in the article [1], the given names are typical Scots forms. (Scots was the language of the Scottish Lowlands, and was closely related to English. Scots names were quite similar to contemporary English names.) We found as a Scots form of in 1487 [4]. So would be a fine name for a Gypsy in the 16th century Scottish Lowlands. As we noted above, is an Italian name. We have found examples in 15th century Florence and Ferrara, and we believe it was common in southern and central Italy throughout your period [2, 3, 5]. The surname isn't quite right for an Italian name. We have found used as a given name in late-period Ferrara [2, 5]. would have been an entirely typical name in 15th or 16th century northern Italy. Early in that period it would have been understood to mean "Pietro, son of Baptista". Later, would have been an inherited family name, in the modern style. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Talan Gwynek, Juliana de Luna, and Blaise de Cormeilles. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 16 Jul 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Arval Benicoeur and the Academy of Saint Gabriel, "Romany (Gypsy) Names" (WWW: privately published, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/romany/ [2] Ferrante laVolpe, _Men's names from Florence, 1427_ (WWW: Self-published, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ferrante/catasto [3] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1992). [4] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Cochran. [5] Talan Gwynek, "15th Century Italian Men's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1998). The name is a contraction of . http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/italian15m.html