ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2041 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2041 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 16 Jun 2000 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You said that you would like to use the name for a German persona set between 1350 and 1550. You asked whether there was any record of the name or the given name in Germany in the early 16th century. Finally, you asked whether the preposition was an indication of royal status or whether the general nobility would have used it. , to use the standard modern form of the name, was a very popular German name in the Middle Ages, thanks in large part to the epic hero Dietrich von Berne, who is loosely based on the 5th and 6th century historical figure of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. [1] The name occurs in a large number of different forms depending on dialect. Thus, different forms are appropriate for different times and geographical regions. We found the exact form in 1291 and 1347, possibly in Silesia. [2] We also found very similar forms (e.g., ) in Switzerland in the late 13th century. [3] Unfortunately, our best sources are biased toward the 12th - 14th centuries, and we were unable to find an instance of from your period. Nevertheless, we are reasonably sure that it would be appropriate throughout your period in much of southern Germany. The argument is somewhat technical, so we have relegated it to a note. [4] We have found no evidence that was used in post-Roman Germany at any time during the SCA period. It is possible that the name was used in medieval or Renaissance Italy in the form , but we have not found an actual citation. [9] We have also found no evidence for a German place-name , though the basic idea of using as a descriptive element meaning 'small, little' is not unreasonable. We did find a modern surname that probably arose from a grammatical variant of . [10, 11] Moreover, the older name of the country of Luxembourg is , from Middle High German 'small, little'. [12, 13] (Here stands for the German u-umlaut.) A note of caution is in order, however. Originally Middle High German meant 'delicate, neat'; only later did 'small, little' become its primary sense. [14] We don't know just when this happened, but it seems at least to have been underway by 1309, when we find the place-name 'Little Leube'. [15] Thus, and the related should be possible place-names by your period, though they may not be particularly likely at the early end of it. Of the names (or ), , and , the first is clearly the most authentic, since it is attested. It is our impression based on our experience of German surnames derived from place-names that represents a more common type than . Both are hypothetical, so , representing the more common type, is probably slightly better historical re-creation. The use of the preposition 'of' with a place-name was by no means limited to royalty during the SCA period, or even to the nobility. It is also found in the recorded names of a great many commoners. For instance, the byname (in various spellings) was borne in the Middle Ages by members of every social class, from the nobility on down through knights and townsmen to peasants. And although the majority of the nobility did have bynames with , at least through the 13th century a great many did not. [16] This type of byname was originally just one of several possible ways of identifying a person. A commoner who had grown up with his neighbors might be known as his father's son, while one who had come from somewhere else might be known by his place of origin. Thus, the man whose name appears in the records of Frankfurt am Main as 1390, 1389, and 1388 was presumably from the nearby town of Butzbach. [17] Incidentally, this example shows clearly that at that date 'of Butzbach', the plain place-name, and 'man from Butzbach' were still just interchangeable descriptions. As time went by, commoners tended to drop the preposition. This process took place at different rates in different parts of Germany, but overall it was very slow. In many places the preposition remained in common use at least until about 1400, and in some remote areas it didn't really start to disappear until the middle of the 17th century. [17] The nobility, on the other hand, were more conservative and retained the preposition. They had always been the class most likely to use bynames with , probably because in their case such names had two possible sources: not only could they indicate origin, they could (and probably more often did) refer to land held in fief. Thus, as the use of by commoners slowly but steadily declined, the preposition became in practice more and more a sign of noble status. Nevertheless, it wasn't until the 17th century that the two became effectively synonymous. [18] To sum up, and would be excellent names for your period. is also very plausible, and seems also to be possible. All of these names would be most at home in southern Germany, and especially in the southwest. Maridonna Benvenuti and Arval Benecoeur also contributed to this report. We hope that it has been useful; if you have any questions about it, please don't hesitate to write again. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 16 June 2000 ===== References and Notes: [1] Gillespie, George T. A Catalogue of Persons Names in German Heroic Literature (700-1600) (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1973); s.n. . [2] Talan Gwynek. 'Medieval German Given Names from Silesia' (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998). Note that despite the title, not all of the names in this source are from Silesian records. http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/bahlow_v.htm [3] Socin, Adolf. Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch nach Oberrheinischen Quellen des Zwoelften und Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966); pp. 11-12. [4] There are four main types of variation in this name: (1) The first vowel can be or , as in and ( counts as a variant of ). (2) The second consonant can be or , as in and , or it can disappear altogether, as in . (3) The last consonant can be or , as in and . (4) The name can have a linking between the first and last syllables, as in , or it can have none, as in . Both from observation and from a general knowledge of the characteristics of the main German dialects we can say that forms with in the first syllable are generally either late-period or southern; forms with are usual in central Germany and in the north. Forms with for the second consonant are generally northern, though they can also be found in central Germany. Forms like are definitely northern. Forms with at the end rather than are also generally northern. The linking occurs in all regions. In general it seems to become less common toward the end of the SCA period, but this could be partly an artifact of the bias in our sources. It was definitely in use in some areas at least into the 16th century. [3, 5, 6, 7, 8] [5] Zoder, R. Familiennamen in Ostfalen. 2 vols. (Hildesheim: 1968); pp. 101, 104, 105, 139. [6] Mulch, Roland. Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum Namenmaterial aus Arnsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert (Darmstadt & Marburg: Hessischen Historischen Kommission Darmstadt and the Historischen Kommission fuer Hessen, 1974); pp. 35, 37. [7] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann. Etymologisches Woerterbuch der Deutschen Familiennamen (Limburg a. d. Lahn: C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-60); s.nn. , , . [8] Robinson, Orrin W. Old English and Its Closest Relatives (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); Ch. 9. [9] De Felice, Emidio. Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1992); s.n. . [10] 'Index ouders en getuigen bij huwelijken Gouda 1811-1849 en 1851-1852', compiled by F.D. van den Heuvel (WWW: Streekarchief HOLLANDS MIDDEN te Gouda, latest revision 25 May 1999) http://www.rsnet.nl/users/sahm/huwanm.htm [11] Compound place-names consisting of an adjective and a noun were often treated like two-word phrases in the early Middle Ages, and the adjective was therefore inflected for the appropriate grammatical case. Thus, the place that one might call 'the red castle' as the subject of a sentence would be 'at the red castle' or 'of or from the red castle' in a typical prepositional phrase. German place-names were used so often in the dative case (required after the prepositions 'of', 'at', 'in', and so on) that many of them became permanently fixed in that form, like the Bavarian place-name . [12] 'Letzeburgesh in Luxembourg', Research Centre of Multilingualism WWW: Euromosaic, no date). http://www.uoc.es/euromosaic/web/document/luxemburgues/an/i1/i1.html [13] Walshe, M. O'C. A Middle High German Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Glossary s.v. . [14] Ibid., Glossary s.v. . [15] Schwarz, Ernst. Deutsche Namenforschung II: Orts- und Flurnamen (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1950); p. 46. [16] Socin, op. cit., Ch. XV, XVI, especially pp. 303, 310. [17] Schwarz, Ernst. Deutsche Namenforschung I: Ruf- und Familiennamen (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1949); pp. 101ff. [18] Ibid., p. 164.