ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1810 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1810 ************************************ 23 Nov 1999 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found on , which you wanted to use as a name for a Viking woman with Irish ancestors living in Dublin between 750 and 1000. Your name only needs a minor change, to , to fit your chosen persona story. (The represents an with an accent over it.) You said you wanted to be a Viking woman. Most of the people we think of as Vikings spoke the Old Norse language. So in the examples below, when we talk about "Norse" we're talking about the language and culture of the Vikings who settled in Ireland. You sent us a list of given names you got from the Web page "Viking Names from the Landna/mabok." (1) Alof Astridhr Alfeidr Asleif Elina Eyja Except for , which is a later borrowing into Norse of , any of these names would be excellent choices for the culture you're interested in. For the sake of simplicity, we'll use the name in all our examples, but the other names are equally appropriate. You asked whether a Norse woman from your period with an Irish father would have been identified with a patronymic based on his name. It's rather difficult to answer this question because we don't know too much about how individual Irish and Norse people participated in communities like Dublin. However, we do have examples of 35 Irish names that were recorded in Norse. (2) Some of these were used by Norse-speaking people, while others are taken from Norse-language accounts of Irish-speakers. It happens that is one of the Irish names that was recorded in Norse. The name "Dufan (the) freedman of A/n red-cloak" appears in the _Landna/mabo/k_. (3) is probably a Norse borrowing of . The patronymic form of this name would be . So we can safely say that a woman named whose father was an Irishman named could be known in Norse as . To that extent, your name is perfect for your persona. However, we do want to point out that we don't know too much about the community of Dublin; we're not sure that Irish men could have settled in Dublin as your persona story describes. However, if your persona story is plausible, your name is as well. Raquel Buenaventura, Blaise de Cormeilles, Talorgen nei Wrguist, Arval Benicoeur, Hartmann Rogge, Talan Gwynek, Zenobia Naphtali, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Your servant, Alan Fairfax Academy of S. Gabriel November 23, 1999 (1) Freidemann, Sara. "Viking Names found in the Landna/mabo/k." (WWW: S Freidemann, 1998) Accessed November 12, 1999. [URL http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/landnamabok.html] (2) Arval Benicoeur, "Client 1667: Norse Scot--Final Report." (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 1999). Accessed November 12, 1999. [URL http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/showfinal.cgi?1667] (3) Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931), s.n. Dufan