ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1984 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1984 ************************************ 23 Mar 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help finding a name as similar as possible to , focusing on Middle Eastern or Slavic cultures. Unfortunately, we haven't found much to help you. You wrote that you originally adapted a friend's surname, , to create your given name. might derive from Polish , but we don't know the origin of that name [2]. There are a few Russian names that sound somewhat similar to [1]. We found: Kukhar, Kuchar 1131 Kukhar' 1598 Kus, Cussi 1052 Kusak (implied by the patronymic 1623) Kutsko 15th century Kutsok 1633 Kucz 1565 Kutsi 945 Kuz 1136 The combination is pronounced \tch\. is pronounced like the raspy in the Scottish word and German . If any of these names interests you, you can find more information about constructing an authentic Russian name in the introductory sections of the web site we've cited here as reference [1]. We also found a modern Slovenian surname [3], but we couldn't trace its origin either, and we don't know whether it existed in our period. We have very little information about period Slovenian names. We didn't find in our references. It's somewhat similar to the Arabic given names , and . The most similar Arabic name to that we can suggest is [4, 5]. "Qasim son of Asad" would be a fine medieval Arabic name. If you'd like to consider other possibilities, you can find some information on period Arabic naming and lists of names in our Medieval Names Archive at http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names. We're sorry we couldn't help more. 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Barak Raz, Walraven van Nijmegen, Juliana de Luna, AElfwyn aet Gyrwum, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 23 Mar 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Paul Wickenden of Thanet, "A Dictionary of Period Russian Names" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1996). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul/ [2] Jewish Records Indexing - Poland (WWW: JRI - Poland, Inc, 1997-2000) Accessed 25 Feb 2000. http://www.jewishgen.org/JRI-PL/index.htm The name appears in a list of Jewish surnames recorded in the town of Tarnow, in Galicia, Poland. [3] Examples of show up in genealogical sites which document the ancestry of some Slovenian-American families, and on some modern websites in Slovenia. For example: http://feefhs.org/slovenia/mich/mich2/mich2-k3.html http://www.ijs.si/vlada/eng/ministrstva/finance/ [4] 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). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/daud/arabic-naming [5] Dodge, Baynard, _The Fihrist of al-Nadim_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). He lists , d.738, and , perhaps late 5th c.