ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1849 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1849 ************************************ 20 Dec 1999 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found about Scottish Gaelic women's names, used between 1200 and 1600, that sound like and which might indicate that you're blonde. Because you said that you weren't entirely sure what persona you wanted, we didn't strictly limit ourselves to the period and location that you were interested in. Instead, we looked more broadly at Gaelic names in both Scotland and Ireland, and in a broad range of time. We have rather little information about Gaelic feminine names in Scotland, so most of our examples are from Ireland. It is entirely possible that these names were also used in Scotland, but we don't have enough information to be certain about that. The Irish name , used in your period, was pronounced \KYAR-@\ in 1600. We don't know how early this pronunciation could have been used, but we wouldn't expect to find it any earlier than 1500. This is the closest sound-match to that we found in Gaelic in any period. We have a couple of suggestions for the rest of your name. If you'd simply like a byname that indicates that you have fair hair or fair skin, you can use the Gaelic (pronounced roughly \INN\). The earlier form (the indicates an with a dot over it) was used as a descriptive name for a woman in Ireland sometime before 1200, (2) and would be appropriate for the bulk of your period. Most Gaelic-speakers used a patronymic--that is, a name that indicated who their father was. was originally a patronymic name derived ultimately from the man's name ; the correct patronymic form for a woman from the 16th century is . The pronunciation of this name in Scottish Gaelic is \NEE-@n CHEN-@-dich\ (the \ch\ should be pronounced like the Scottish "ch" in "loch." (3) Putting all of these pieces together, we have the name , which can be translated as "Ceara, the fair daughter of Cinne/idigh." This is an appropriate name for a 16th-century Gaelic- speaking woman from Scotland. Raquel Buenaventura, Juliana de Luna, Barak Raz, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, 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 (1) O/ Corrain, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Ceara. (2) Jones, Heather Rose. "Feminine Names from the Index to O'Brien's _Corpus Genealogicorum Hiberniae." (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 1996). Accessed December 1, 1999. [URL: http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/irish-obrien.html] (3) -----. "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland." (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). Accessed December 8, 1999. [URL: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100/]