ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1934 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1934 ************************************ 29 Feb 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help choosing a 14th or 15th century Polish masculine name. You were particularly interested in Polish forms of , , , , or , and names that imply bravery, strength, or another virtue of chivalry. Here is what we have found. We have an article on the web on late-period Polish given names, listed below as reference [1]. You may find some names there that interest you. You'll see that the article separates Slavic-origin names from names derived from foreign sources, mostly Christian and biblical. If there's a name or two in this list that appeals you, we can quickly look up additional period spellings and give you proper pronunciations. We have found late-period Polish forms of the names you asked about. Some of them are better choices than others; we've marked the more common names with a star [1, 2]. In the pronunciation guides, \@\ represents the schwa sound of the in or . * Peter: , , , (all pronounced \PYOH-t@r\); , (pronounced \PYOH-trah\); , (pronounced \PYEH-t@r). * Mark: (15th C), , (14th & 15th C) Anthony: , (pronounced \AHN-toh-nee\). Augustus, Augustine: , Richard: (1372), (1385, 1390), (1386) Victor: and were rare names, apparently used only by ecclestiastics (perhaps taken as devotional names upon entering the church). was a rare name, but does seem to have been used by the lay population [2]. You also asked us to suggest names with meanings like or . Although nearly all given names ultimately derived from regular words in some language, the meanings of those root words were usually forgotten fairly quickly. Given names evolved away from their roots, were adapted from one language to another, and lost any association with their roots. A Pole of your period would have considered or to be simply names. His associations with those names would have been drawn from Christianity, not from the ancient words from which the names derived. Surnames are a different matter: In your period, surnames were still used literally in Polish. A man might have been known by a surname that meant "the Strong" or "the Brave". More often, his surname would mean something like "Piotr's son" or "from Warsaw" or "the Smith". You can find some general discussion of medieval surnames on the web: A Brief Introduction to Medieval Bynames http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/arval/bynames This article is illustrated with English examples, but the general ideas are applicable to Polish, too. If you'd like to know the form any other byname would take in Polish, we'll be happy to help. We found a couple Polish bynames from your period with meanings that may appeal to you [2]: Czysthy (1490), Czysty (1491) \TCHIH-stih\ "pure" Silicz (1433) \SHIH-litch\ "strong" or would be fine names for your culture. 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. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Juliana de Luna, and Amant le Marinier. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 29 Feb 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Walraven van Nijmegen and Arval Benicoeur, _Polish Given names in Nazwiska Polako/w_ (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/walraven/polish/ [2] Taszycki, Witold (ed.), _S{l/}ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_, vols. I-VII (Wroc{l/}aw: Zak{l/}ad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli{n'}skich, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1965-1987), s.n. Rychart, Wiktor, Antoni, Augustyn, Marek/Marko, Piotr, Czysty, {Z.}ylic(z).