ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1808 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1808 ************************************ From: "Sara L Friedemann" 6 Dec 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if it would be correct to combine the Italian name with the German diminutive suffix to create an authentic Swiss German name for the 14th and 15th centuries. Here is the information we have found. A good rule of thumb is that a name should, as a whole, be something that existed in a single culture -- but single cultures may have name elements that originate from more than one source. The tricky part is knowing what types of elements might have been used together with a culture, and what types would not. As far as we can tell, it would not be appropriate to mix German and Italian spellings in a single name; we have found no evidence that this was ever done. was probably originally derived from the name . We find this spelling in Florence in the 15th century, as well as the pet form in the 13th century. [1,2] However, we have no evidence that was used by the Germans. In Germany, we do find the name ; however, the evidence we found leads us to believe that this is a modern name. [3] We do have examples of in the 14th century [4]; this would be a fine choice for a German name. The diminituve <-lein> was spelled <-lin> or <-lyn> in Middle High German; the change from the Middle High German spelling to the New High German form <-lein> did not happen until late in period. Our example of in the following list appears to be an unusually early example. (The colon represents an umlaut over the previous letter.) We have a number of names that used <-lin> or <-lyn> as a diminutive. [5] The first three are masculine names, the second two are feminine: >From Enderlein 1445 Enderlin 1343, 1352, 1379, 1390 Enderlyn 1272, 1343 Anderllin 1352 >From U:lein 1381 >From Henlin 1352, 1355, 1359 Henlyn 1369-72 >From Keterlyn 1366 >From Merlin 1355 Merlyn 1385 In these examples, <-lin> or <-lyn> was used prior to the 15th century, and we see <-lein> first being used in the late 14th century. However, the use of diminutive suffixes is unpredictable. Since we have no evidence for a diminutive and several examples of a completely different diminutive , we cannot recommend that you use this ending to form . We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Blaise de Cormeilles. For the Academy, ~Aryanhwy merch Catmael December 6, 1999 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/catasto]. [2] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from Thirteenth Century Perugia" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1997) [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/perugia/]. [3] Bahlow, Hans, _Deutsches Namenlexikon : Familien- und Vornamen nach Ursprung und Sinn erklaert_ (Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985, 1990). [4] Mulch, Roland, _Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum Namenmaterial aus anrsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert_ (Darmstadt & Marburg: Hessischen Historischen Kommission Darmstadt and the Historischen Kommission fu:r Hessen, 1974). p. 39 [5] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998) [URL:http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/bahlow_v.htm].