ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1909 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1909 ************************************ 7 Feb 2000 From: Alan Terlep Greetings, Here's the information we found on the name , which you wanted to use as a Turkish man's name from the period between 1100 and 1600. is a form of which was borrowed into Turkish from Arabic. It is a common Arabic name and it was used by several Ottoman sultans. (1,2) You mentioned that you took the other elements of your name from an article on Arabic names in our library. (3) They are accurate for Arabic, but we're not entirely sure whether they would have also been used by a Turk. Currently, our information on Turkish names is so limited that it's difficult for us to make any real guesses. However, it appears that the Turks tended to use only the most common Arabic names. wasn't a very common name, and so we have some doubt whether it would have been used by a Turkish man. As alternatives, we've compiled a list of Ottoman sultans and another list of relatively popular Arabic names from other parts of the Muslim world. The Turkish names are clearly accurate for your persona; it is probable, but not certain, that the popular Arabic names would be accurate as well. In period, Turkish names were written in the Arabic alphabet. (4) The forms listed below, written in the Latin alphabet, are only rough approximations of the period spellings. Some Turkish names were borrowed from Arabic, and we have included Latin-alphabet equivalents of both Turkish and Arabic forms of these names. If you decide that you're particularly interested in one or more of them, we will provide you with the Arabic spelling and with the pronunciation. Names of Turkish Sultans (with some Arabic forms) (5) 'Osman 'Uthman Orxan Murad Bayezid Bayezid, Abu Yazid Mehmed Muhammad Murad Selim Salim Suleyman Sulayman Ahmed Ahmad Mustafa Mustafa Musa Musa Popular Arabic names from Andalucia: (6) `Abd Allah Ahmad `Abd al-Rahman `Ali Yusuf Yahya We believe that one of these names would be better re-creation than . The descriptive is an Arabic term meaning "the Rightly Guided" or "following the right way." (7) In this name, the in is pronounced like an , so it sounds like \ahr rah-SHEED\. This name is fairly common in Arabic; (8) we didn't find it in Turkish but we would not be surprised to find that it was used in Ottoman Turkey. As you've used it, it could be applied either to you or your father: you could be "Suleiman the Rightly Guided, son of Jabir" or "Suleiman, son of Jabir the Rightly-Guided." Juliana de Luna, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Raquel Buenaventura, Miguel Santos de Borja, Amant le Marinier, Maridonna Benvenuti, Blaise de Cormeilles, Talan Gwynek, and Arval Benicoeur 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 February 7, 2000 (1) Da'ud ibn Auda, "Arabic Naming Practices and Names List," _Compleat Anachronist_ #51, "The Islamic World" (Milpitas: SCA, Inc, Autumn 1990; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/daud/arabic-naming/] (2) Armajani, Yahya. _The Middle East: Past and Present_ (Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), passim. (3) Mustapha al-Muhaddith ibn al-Saqaat, "Arabic Pesonal Names from the Futuwwah", ed. Arval Benicoeur and Avelina of the Bridge (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999) [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/mustapha/futuwwah.html]. (4) Britannica Online, "Turkish language." (WWW: Britannica Online, 2000) Accessed February 2, 2000. [URL: http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=75782&sctn=1] (5) Armajani, op. cit. (6) Juliana de Luna, unpublished article, 2000. Her work is a summary of names found in Manuela Mari/n, _Estudios Onoma/stico-biogra/ficos de al-Andalus_, 8 volumes (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cienti/ficas, Instituto de Filologi/a, Departmento de Estudios Arabes, 1988-1997). (7) Mustapha, op. cit. (8) Brittanica Online, "Jami." (WWW: Britannica Online, 2000) Accessed January 31, 2000. [URL: http://search.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,44304+1,00.html]