ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1823
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1823
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From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 
1 Dec 1999

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Red Nammoc> 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 <Red> 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 <Nammoc> 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

<Commander>, 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, <Nemok> would be an appropriate surname for 
a Lowland Scot, and <Commander> 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).