ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2031 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2031 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 25 Apr 2000 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether or would be an authentic 12th or 13th century English feminine name. The name seems to have been very rare in your period, though we did find one example from 1205 as well as one instance of from 1218. These two records may be slightly misleading, however: there is a good chance that both of these women were actually named . [1] Quite a few names that are now considered masculine were then used by both men and women, e.g., , the vernacular form of modern . [2, 3] Most official records were in Latin, however, and it was customary to use Latin or Latinized forms of names. A man named is therefore likely to appear in records as , with the masculine suffix <-us>. This would have been inappropriate for a female , who therefore appears as . Similarly, there is a good chance that represents a scribal feminization of . To complicate matters even further, the actual pronunciation was probably rather different from anything suggested by the spelling . In an early 14th century English work we find the feminine name spelled , and in 1273 the masculine name appears as and . [1, 4] This suggests that the name was pronounced \ah-lih-SAWN-d@r\, where \@\ stands for the sound of in and . The name , also found as , , and , was much more common, though it is not unlikely that the women in question were actually called (pronounced \NICK-@l\) or even . [ 5, 6, 7, 8] In English records of the 10th and 11th centuries most people are recorded with a single name, more or less analogous to our given name. It was during your period, the 12th and 13th centuries, that the practice of using a byname -- a second name further identifying the person in question -- went from rare to nearly universal. One of the more common types was the patronymic or metronymic, a byname identifying the bearer's father or mother, respectively. In so far as we can discern the vernacular reality behind the almost universal Latin of the documents, it seems that in your period these bynames most often consisted simply of the father's or mother's given name. Metronymics were less common than patronymics, but they were far from rare. [9, 10] contains a metronymic of this type. is an English borrowing of the Old Norse feminine name , one of many names borrowed by the English from the Scandinavians. It was still in use in Yorkshire in the late 13th century, and in the 1270s it also appears as a metronymic in Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, and Kent; it would be a fine choice of byname for your period. However, we have not found the spelling . The usual spelling, used in three of our four examples of the metronymic, seems to have been . [11, 12, 13] Other names ending in <-hild> typically also show this loss of , so we recommend that you use or, since and were interchangeable at that time, . The name is pronounced \RAH-v@n-ild\. is also attested as a byname from your period; we have several examples from the 1270s. The spelling seems to have been a bit more common, but either is fine. Since the name was used by both men and women, it may be either patronymic or metronymic, but there is reason to think that the spellings with final <-e> are especially likely to be metronymic. [14, 15, 16] To sum up, is an excellent name for your period. is also authentic, though the given was apparently very rare. In both cases the spelling of the given name is probably a conventional Latinization hiding a somewhat different vernacular pronunciation. One final note: During your period most English documents were written in Latin. Especially at the beginning of your period it was common to Latinize names very completely. In such a record these names might have appeared as 'Alexandra daughter of Nichola' and 'Alexandra daughter of Ravenilda', respectively. [17] Adelaide de Beaumont and Aryanhwy merch Catmael also provided some of the information for this letter. We hope that it is useful; if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to write again. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 24 April 2000 ===== References and Notes: [1] Withycombe, E.G. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); s.n. Alexandra. [2] Ibid., pp. xxxiv-xxxv, s.n. Philippa. [3] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995); s.n. Philip. [4] Bardsley, Charles W. A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980); s.n. Saunder. [5] Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester, 'A Statistical Study of Given Names in Essex Co., England, 1182-1272', in the 1995 Midrealm Heraldic Symposium Proceedings (SCA: 1995; WWW: J. Mittleman) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5145/names.html [6] Assize Roll 223, 27 Henry III (1242-43) [personal communication from Talan Gwynek] [7] Reaney & Wilson, op. cit., s.n. Nicholas. [8] Withycombe, op. cit., s.n. Nicola. [9] Clark, Cecily, 'Onomastics', in _The Cambridge History of the English Language_, Vol. II, Norman Blake, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); pp. 566-8. [10] Reaney & Wilson, op. cit., p. xviii. [11] The fourth, , uses the Old English spelling of the sound \v\ between two vowels. This seems to have been fairly uncommon throughout your period. [12] Reaney & Wilson, op. cit., s.n. Ravenhall. [13] Bardsley, op. cit., s.n. Ravenhill. [14] Reaney & Wilson, op. cit., s.n. Nicholas. [15] Bardsley, op. cit., s.n. Nicholes. [16] John, Trevor. The Warwickshire Hundred Rolls of 1279-80. Stoneleigh and Kineton Hundreds. Records of Social and Economic History. New Series XIX (Oxford: Oxford University Press, for The British Academy, 1992); p. 316. [17] The final <-e> in and marks the Latin genitive (possessive) case.