ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1779 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1779 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 30 Oct 1999 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found about , which you wanted to use as an English women's name from between 1250 and 1350. We found that your name is not completely accurate for the period you're interested in. At the least, we recommend that you drop from the name. You may want to modify --we didn't find any period examples of the name, but we think that it is plausible. We'll discuss each of the elements of the name in detail below. We found the name dated to 1332 in England (1), so it is perfect for your culture. The only reference to that we found is from Scotland in 1615, (2) which is not appropriate for your culture. However, is a form of , which was a fairly common name in your period. (3) During your period, middle names are almost unknown in English--until the 16th century, almost everyone in England had only one given name. For your period, a middle name is not appropriate. It would be appropriate to use either or , but not both. Unfortunately, we have discovered that the list of knights at the Battle of Hastings that included the name is not reliable--we apologize for the mistake. We didn't find any genuine citations of , but we think that it could have existed. If it had been used in your period, it would have come from the Middle English man's name . (4) In medieval French, the ending <-ot> was often added to a name as a diminutive (like the English ending <-y> in , , and similar names). It is possible that <-ot> could have been added to to produce the male name . In medieval England a man's children were commonly identified with his name, so the last name would have meant "Ravenot's daughter." By your period, it could have also been used as an inherited surname--your father's given name would not necessarily have to be for you to have as a surname. Of course, everything above is speculation--we don't have any real-world examples of in England or anywhere else. It is a plausible constructed name, but we also wanted to suggest some similar names that have been taken from real medieval records. These include: (5) * 1276 * 1133-60 * 1279 * 1248 * 1297. * 1312 (the ending <-es> would indicate that the head of her family--perhaps her husband or father--had the byname .) Although not all the dates are from the exact period you're looking for, we are sure that these names are appropriate for your period. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Catalana di Neri, Barak Raz, Blaise de Cormeilles, Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter. Your servant, Alan Fairfax October 30, 1999 (1) Scott, Brian. "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). Accessed October 4, 1999. Available at http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/reaney/ (2) Scott, Brian. "A List of Feminine Personal Names Found in Scottish Records." (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997). Accessed October 12, 1999. Available at http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/scottishfem/ (3) Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Marion. (4) Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). s.nn. Raven (5) ibid., s.nn. Raven, Ravenhall, Ravening. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, Arval, 22 Jul 2004: See also report 1751 for more on .