ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1949 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1949 ************************************ 2 May 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether or is an appropriate name for an Andalusia Muslim woman in the 10th or 11th century. Here is what we have found. We believe both names fit your culture well, but we're not sure of the meaning of the second byname. was a fairly common name in Muslim countries. It was the name of Muhammad's first wife [1]. It is pronounced \KHAH-dee-dzhah\. \kh\ is the harsh, rasping sound of the in the Scottish word or the German . \zh\ sounds like the in . The Arabic byname "blue-eyed" was used by a woman in the 10th century and so is probably a good choice for your name [2, 3]. It was pronounced \ahz-zar-kah\. Before a word beginning with , the article is pronounced \ahz\. The \K\ sound in this word is pronounced further back in the throat than the normal English \K\. We're not certain what means, but we think it is probably an ethnic term, "woman of the tribe of 'Amiri" [4]. Assuming that's correct, it would be an appropriate choice as well, since it is also recorded in a 10th century woman's name [2]. It was pronounced \ahl-ah-mi-REE-yah\. 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. We were assisted in researching and writing this letter by Pedro de Alcazar, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Juliana de Luna, Talan Gwynek, Sion Andreas, Julie Stampnitzky, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Mari neyn Brian, Elsbeth Anne Roth, Rebecca, and Sion Andreas. For the Academy, Alan Fairfax & Arval Benicoeur 2 May 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Armajani, Yahya. _The Middle East: Past and Present_ (Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p.80. [2] 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/] [3] Wehr, Hans, _A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic_, 3rd ed., J. Milton Cowan, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976), s.n. zarqah. [4] Note that we're fairly certain that does _not_ mean "the wife or daughter of the Amir". The word has the wrong grammatical form to have such a meaning. Note that the SCA College of Arms would not register a name that included a title of rank; but this should not be a problem with either of the names we've discussed here.