ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2044
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2044
************************************

From: "Brian M. Scott" 
4 Jun 2000

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked whether <Ma/g-Tryggve Skeggjason> is a properly constructed
name for a 9th century Viking.  You also wanted to know specifically
what the byname <Ma/g-> would signify in this name.  You also asked
about the name <Ma/na-Tryggve> if <Ma/g-Tryggve> should turn out to
be inappropriate.

<Tryggve> is a modern Norwegian spelling of the Old Norse name
<Tryggvi>.  <Tryggvi> was not a common name in the Viking period,
but it was in use in the 10th and 11th centuries, especially by
Norwegian royalty.  It seems to have begun as a pet form of
<Sigtryggr>, perhaps at about your period. [1, 2]

The nickname <Ma/g-> is from the Old Norse noun <ma/gr> 'a male
relative by marriage, generally a father-in-law, a brother-in-law,
or a son-in-law'. [3]  It is found as the nickname of Ma/g-Snorri, a
12th century Icelander.   We don't know why he was given that 
nickname, but it may have been to distinguish him from his 
father-in-law, whose name was also <Snorri>. [4, 5]

We have no other example of the nickname <Ma/g->, but the word
<ma/gr> is used in several other 12th century nicknames: <Andre/s
ma/gr> 'Andre/s' male in-law', <iarlsmaagr> 'jarl's male in-law',
<prestz magr> 'priest's male in-law'. [6]  Unfortunately, all of
these examples are from a good two centuries after your period.  On
the other hand, there are also Viking age runic inscriptions made
<eptir X ma/g sinn> 'in memory of X, his male in-law'. [7]  The
relationships commemorated in these inscriptions were evidently of
some importance, so it does not seem too great a stretch to guess
that they could have been the basis for a nickname well before the
12th century.

There is also evidence for early use of prefixed nicknames.  In the
early Icelandic quasi-historical literature, first set down in the
12th century, many men who lived in the 9th and 10th centuries are
known by such nicknames: <Ber{dh}lu-Ka/ri>, <Berg-O,nundr>,
<Bifru-Ka/ri>, <Blo/t-Ubbi>, <Blund-Ketill>, <Brei{dh}a/r-Skeggi>,
<Brodd-Helgi>, <Bro/ka-Au{dh}r>, <Digr-Ketill>, <Digr-Ormr>, etc. [8]
 We cannot be sure that they were so known in their own lifetimes,
but the large number of examples makes it fairly likely.

On balance, then, <Ma/g-Tryggvi> seems a fairly plausible combination
of nickname and name for a 10th or 11th century Viking.  The 9th
century, however, seems to be just a little too early for <Tryggvi>,
since the name first appears around the year 900.

The combination is pronounced roughly \MAHKH-TRU"G-vee\, where \KH\
stands for the rasping sound of <ch> in Scottish <loch> and German
<Bach>, and \U"\ stands for the German u-umlaut as in <fu"llen>. [9]


The nickname <Ma/na-> is recorded as having been borne in the early
11th century by a man named <Lio/tr>, the son of a man named <Ma/ni>.
 Although it appears to mean 'moon', in this case appearances are
probably deceiving: the possessive of <Ma/ni> is <Ma/na>, and in this
case <Ma/na-Lio/tr> probably simply means 'Ma/ni's Lio/tr'. [10] 
There is no reason to think that <Ma/na-Tryggvi> would be more
authentic for your period than <Ma/g-Tryggvi>.


This brings us finally to the question of how to write your name.
<Ma/g-Tryggvi Skeggjason> is a normalized scholarly form of the
name. [11]  In the spelling of the earliest (12th century)
manuscripts it would probably have been written more like
<Ma/g-Tryggui Skeggia son>, and in your period it would normally have
been written in runes.

We can't reproduce runes in this letter, so we'll represent them with
the Roman letters by which they are conventionally named. That is to
say, we'll use <k> for the k-rune, <i> for the i-rune, and so on. You
can find an illustration of several versions of the futhark, or runic
alphabet, on the web:

    http://ils.unc.edu/~yanda/futhark.html

The futharks appropriate to your period are the ones labelled
'Danish', 'Swedish-Norwegian', 'Mixed', and 'Ha"lsinge'.  As you can
see, each of these has only 16 characters; consequently one rune
often represents more than one sound, just as our letter <s>
represents different sounds in the words <base> and <bays>.

In particular, there are no runes corresponding to some of the
letters in the name, like the <e>, the <o>, and the <g>.  The name
<Ma/g-Tryggvi Skeggja son> would actually have been written with the
runes corresponding to the spelling <mak:trukui:skikia:sun>.  (The
colon is similar to one of the signs commonly used to separate words
in runic inscriptions.)  You have to be a little careful here,
however, because there are two a-runes and two r-runes in the younger
futhark.  The <a>s in your name should be written with the 10th rune,
and the <r> should be written with the 5th rather than the 11th rune.
(Note that this spelling is valid only when you write the name in
runes; it should not be used with Latin letters.).


Arval Benicoeur, Lindorm Eriksson, Maridonna Benvenuti, Tangwystyl
verch Morgant Glasvryn, Hartmann Rogge, Blaise de Cormeilles, and
Juliana de Luna also contributed to this letter.  We hope that it
has been useful; if you have any further questions, please don't
hesitate to write again.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek
4 June 2000

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References and Notes:

[1] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed.  Norsk Personnamnleksikon.  2nd ed. 
(Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. <Tryggve>.

[2] Lind, E.H.  Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n
Medeltiden (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, suppl. Oslo, Uppsala and
Copenhagen: 1931); s.n. <Tryggvi>.  [The <a"> is an a-umlaut; the
<a*> is an <a> with a small circle directly above it.]

[3] Cleasby, R., G. Vigfusson, & W. Craigie.  An Icelandic-English
Dictionary (Oxford: At the University Press, 1975); s.v. <ma/gr>.

[4] Lind, E.H.  Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden
(Uppsala: 1920-1921); s.n. <Ma/g-Snorri>.

[5] Arno/rsson, Einar, ed.  Landna/mabo/k I/slands (Reykjavi/k:
Helgafell, 1948); p. 165.

[6] Lind, Personbinamn, s.nn. <Andre/s ma/gr>, <Iarls ma/gr>, <Prestz
ma/gr>.  The full names involved are <Einarr Andre/s ma/gr>, <Io/n
iarlsmaagr>, and <Eyuindr prestz magr> or <prestz ma/gr>.

[7] Uppsala University Department for Scandinavian Languages. 
Rundata, software pre-release version 8.84 (test) (Uppsala: Uppsala
universitet, 1990); SM 51, VG 35. Accessible at: 
    http://www.nordiska.uu.se/samnord.html

[8] Lind, Personbinamn, s.nn.  Owing to the limitations of e-mail, 
we've had to use makeshift representations of several letters.  The 
slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding vowel.  The 
combination <O,> stands for an <O> with a hook like a backwards comma 
hanging from its lower edge.  The symbol <{dh}> stands for the letter 
edh (or eth), which looks like a backwards <6> with short stroke 
through the upright part.

[9] The u-umlaut sound can be made by trying to say the vowel in 
<bit> with the lips pursed and rounded.

[10] Lind, Personbinamn, s.n. <Ma/na-Lio/tr>.

[11] <Skeggjason> was discussed in our previous report to you; you
can find it on the web at
    http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/showfinal.cgi?1269