ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1946 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1946 ************************************ From: "Braddon Giles" 5 Mar 2000 Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You wrote to us asking for our assistance in forming a name for your husband. You required an authentic Spanish or Portuguese masculine name, for the period 1300 to 1550. In particular you were interested in the name . is a fine name for your husband. The earliest example we have found is the patronymic surname from 1271 [1]. We have seen used all through your period in Spain, the versions and were found in the late 15th century [2,3]. Most Spanish names in your period of interest include a given name and a single byname. The bynames were essentially descriptive, usually identifying a man as his father's son or by the place where he lived. Surnames based on placenames were usually formed with the preposition "of", e.g. . Such names usually indicated where a person lived or where he was born. By the end of your period, though, some of these names had been transformed into inherited family names and were no longer used literally. The preposition was sometimes dropped in both inherited and individual bynames. Lanzarote is indeed one of the Canary Islands. It was called "Insula de lanzaroto maloxelo" in 1375 [4], and either , or on 16th century maps [5]. We doubt that a Spanish surname could have been based on this place name until the mid-15th century, and probably not until the 16th century. Lanzarote was conquered by Jean de Bethencourt, who was named king of the islands by Enrique III of Castile in 1404. The islands were incorporated into Spain in 1479 [6]. By then the practice of creating literal locative bynames was becoming much rarer. However, in the early 16th century a man from Lanzarote might have still used a locative byname. is also a given name, one of the Iberian forms of . It was pronounced \lahn-sa-ROH-teh\. We have found it spelled in Portugal, from around the turn of the 15th century [7]. The stands for the c-cedilla - a 'c' with a hook on the bottom. We also found a modern Navarese surname that probably derived from the given name [8]. In summary, we think that is a fine name for your husband's entire period. Until the late 15th century, it would probably have meant "Gabriel son of Lanzarote". Thereafter, could have been an inherited family name. From the 16th century it might have been based on the name of the island, with possibilities including , or , and also with the preposition , or . We hope this letter has been useful. Please write to 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Maridonna Benvenuti, Juliana de Luna, Talan Gwynek, Blaise de Cormeilles, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Arval d'Espas Nord and Pedro de Alcazar. For the Academy, Giles Leabrook. 05/Mar/2000 __________________________________________________ Bibliography. [1] Diez Melcon, R. P. Gonzalo, _Apellidos Castellano-Leoneses: Siglos IX-XIII, ambos inclusive_ (Universidad de Granada, 1957); p. 104. [2] Elsbeth Anne Roth, _16th-century Spanish Men's Names_ (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/spanish-m.html [3] De La Torre, Antonio and E. A. de la Torre, eds., _Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza Tesorero de Isabel la Cato/lica_ (Madrid: Biblioteca "Reyes Cato/licos", 1956). [4] Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, _Before Columbus_ (Philadelphia: U. of Penn. Press, 1987); page 161. [5] Wolff, Hans, _America: Early Maps of the New World_, Neues Publishing Company (for Prestel-Verag, Munich, Germany): New York, 1992. [6] "Canary Islands" Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=20234&sctn=1 Accessed 2 Feb 2000 [7] Juliana de Luna, _Portuguese Names 1350-1450_ (WWW: Arval d'Espas Nord, 1998) http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/juliana/portuguese/ [8] De Atienza, Julio, _Nobiliario Espan~ol_ (Madrid: Aguilar SA de Ediciones, 1954); s.n. Lanzarot.