ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1875 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1875 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 12 Jan 2000 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found on , which you wanted to use as a Spanish name from the 1500s. Unfortunately, this is not a plausible name for a Spanish man living in the 1500s. We found no evidence that either or were used as given names in Spain in your period, although we did find evidence that was used in northern Italy. (1) The earliest medieval reference to that we found was the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I. Some sources say that his name was invented by his father, who combined the ancient Roman names and . (2) However, other sources say that Maximilian was named after S. Maximilianus of Noricum, a Roman martyr. (3) Although we don't have any other records of people named after this saint, it is possible that the name was occassionally used. However, we would expect to find it mostly in Germany, where the relics of S. Maximilian were located. The Spanish derives from the name of the German emperors and it apparently wasn't used until after your period, so it is not a historically accurate name for your period. [See also report 3002 for more discussion of .] If you want to keep a Spanish persona, we recommend that you choose a different given name. A list of Spanish men's names is on the Web at 16th-century Spanish Men's Names http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kvs/mnames.html If you want to use as an Italian name, you will need to find an Italian surname. We have a list of Italian surnames on the Web: Family Names from the Castato of 1427 http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/ferrante/catasto/family_names.html In your period, it was more common for people to have a single given name rather than a first and middle name. Although some people in both Spain and Italy had two given names, we recommend that you choose a single name-- especially if your given name is an unusual one. is, as you know, the surname of the conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire. It is not unique to the family of Francisco Pizarro--we found some other people with the last name in the period between 1500 and 1537, before Francisco Pizarro rose to great fame. It was not uncommon for later-period Spanish family names to include a locative--that is, a name based on a place. We did notice that the majority of locative surnames were based on towns and cities (such as Valencia, Granada, or Toledo) rather than a region (like Andalucia or Castile). (4) However, there are enough examples of regional names used in this way that is a plausible surname. Juliana de Luna, Pedro de Alcazar, Miguel Santos de Borja, Walraven van Nijmegen, Salvador Paolo de Barcelona, Amant le Marinier, Raquel Buenaventura, 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 January 12, 2000 (1) De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, 1992), s.n. Argentina (2) Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Maximilian (3) "Maximilian" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. (WWW: Kevin Knight, 1999) Accessed December 5, 1999. [URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10075a.htm] (4) De Atienza, Julio, _Nobilario Espan~ol_ (Madrid: Aguilar SA de Ediciones, 1954), passim - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, Arval, 8 Mar 2005: Added a pointer to report 3002.