ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1882 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1882 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 13 Feb 2000 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether would be an appropriate name for a Greek woman living in Constantinople in the 14th or 15th century. You also asked whether "Purpure, a dolphin haurient contourny argent" would be appropriate arms. Here is the information we have found. was used as a woman's given name in early Greece; we have evidence of the name recorded in the 5th century. It was properly recorded as "sigma-epsilon-lambda-eta-nu-eta" in Greek characters; the name can be expressed in the Latin alphabet in several ways. You mentioned the spelling "Selh/nh"; in this particular modern transliteration, "h" is used to represent the Greek letter eta and "/" shows the stress placed on the second syllable. [1] The name is identical to the common Greek word for "moon", which was pronounced \seh-LEE-nee\ throughout the Byzantine period. If the word were used as a name, we believe the pronunciation would have been the same. Many names from ancient Greece fell out of fashion during the Middle Ages and were only revived in more modern times. Since we cannot find evidence of this name occurring during your period, we cannot recommend it as a good choice. You wanted to use the surname as a translation of your Barony's name, "Three Mountains". We found no real place by that name, and we don't have enough information on medieval Greek place-names to determine whether is correctly formed. [2] If you are interested in an appropriate surname for your period, there is an article on later period Byzantine names which you may find helpful: [3] Personal Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire during the Later Byzantine Era, http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/byzantine/family_names.html You proposed using the armory, "Purpure, a dolphin haurient contourny argent". A single charge is excellent style; however, purpure as a tincture was exceedingly rare in your period. We found fewer instances of animal charges contourny than in the dexter-facing position for your period. A sinister-facing dolphin is not impossible, but since we think your design is too similar to a registered set of Society arms [4], we recommend you consider these two points in re-designing your arms. As an example, "Gules, three dolphins haurient argent" would be excellent style for your period. If you like this alternative, we believe that you can register it with the SCA College of Arms. You should be aware that in medieval heraldry, dolphins were drawn in a highly stylized manner, never naturalistically. You can find a picture of a heraldic dolphin in any good book on heraldry, or online at: http://www.heraldica.org/cgi-bin/atlas.pl?13 , items 315 and 316 [5]. We hope this letter has been helpful. Please feel free to write again if you have other questions or if any part of this letter has been unclear. I was assisted in writing this letter by Alan Fairfax, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Rouland Carre, Talan Gwynek, and Zenobia Naphtali. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 13 February 2000 References: [1] Fraser, P.M., and E. Matthews, The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, (WWW: Oxford University, 1998), http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/ , accessed 13 February 2000 (s.n. Volume IIIa, Selh/nh). [2] The fact that is a translation of your Barony's name will not be a consideration if you try to register it. The College of Arms relaxes its rules to allow the SCA branch names to be used as part of personal names, but that allowance only applies to branch names in their exact registered forms. A translation of a branch name will not be given special consideration, but will simply be treated as an invented place-name. [3] Bardas Xiphias, "Personal Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire during the Later Byzantine Era, http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/byzantine/introduction.html , ( WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997), accessed 13 February 2000. [4] Juan el Blanco has registered "Per chevron vert and gules, a dolphin haurient argent." The SCA College of Arms does not consider a fish haurient to be different from a fish haurient contourny for registration purposes (LoAR 5/92, p.22). [5] Heraldica, http://www.heraldica.org , (WWW: copyright 1995-99 by Franc,ois R. Velde), accessed 13 February 2000.