ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1823 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1823 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 1 Dec 1999 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a man living in the 15th or 16th century. You indicated that you derived this name from spelling the word "commander" backwards. While it is not impossible that through sheer chance you might arrive at a real name by spelling a word backwards, we had difficulty thinking up any possible examples. Further, we would like to assure you that a name in your period would not have been derived in this fashion. Since you have been using this name, however, we think the following information will be useful to you. The name would not be used as a given name. It appears as a byname (for example, "John the Red"), usually for persons with red hair. Though friends of "John the Red" might call him "Red", his name would not be recorded as such. We could not find the name in any culture for the period specified. The closest phonetic match we found was with a Lowland Scottish surname, Nemok, with the following examples for your period [1]: Johannes Newmoch, juror on assize at Liston, 1459 Agnes Nemoch, married in 1490 Alexander Nemok, witness in Glasgow, 1587 , the word on which you based your name, is an English surname within your specified period and could be used with any English given name from the same period [2]. In conclusion, for your period, would be an appropriate surname for a Lowland Scot, and would be an appropriate surname for an Englishman. The first preserves the sound of your current name, while the second preserves the word on which the name was based. Either name may be used with an English given name from the period; a list containing many suitable names can be found at: www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/brasses/men.html 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 or need help selecting a given name. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval Benicoeur, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Lindorm Eriksson. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 1 December 1999 References [1] Black, George F., The Surnames of Scotland (The New York Public Library, New York, 1946), s.n. Nimmo [2] Bardsley, Charles W., A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (London, 1901).