ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2116 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2116 ************************************ 2 Oct 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a woman in medieval Wales or Ireland. Here is what we have found. You told us that you invented the name . Making up a name which is plausibly authentic is a difficult art. Obviously any newly-invented name cannot possibly be authentic in the strictest sense, so we always recommend that people choose names that actually were used in period. It is important to understand that name invention was rare in almost all period European cultures and completely unknown in many. Modern American culture, in which almost any combination of words or sounds can be accepted as a name, is historically quite unusual. In most times and places in European history, parents gave their children names which were already in local common use. A name made up simply on the basis of its sound is never going to be a plausible re-creation of any culture, except perhaps by pure coincidence. It is possible in some cases to invent a name that is a very plausible extension of a pattern of naming in a particular period culture. This requires study of the particular culture, as these patterns are not consistent from one culture to the next and often were used only in a narrow range of time and geography. For example, in medieval Gaelic, a number of color adjectives came to be used as the basis for masculine given names: from "black", from "red", from "brown" [1]. We might speculate that the word for "gold" could also have been used as the basis for a name; but we couldn't extend it to create names based on words meaning "tall" or "hairy". Unfortunately, isn't a plausible invention for either of the cultures that interest you. Its form is more compatible with Welsh than Irish -- it closely resembles the rare Welsh masculine name -- but we can't find any justification for constructing . You might perhaps be interested in one of these medieval Welsh feminine names [2]: Gwenllian Gwen Gwladus Gwledyr Gwerfyl Gwir If you're interested in any of these, we'll be happy to tell you more about them. You can find some general information about the construction of medieval Welsh names in an article on the web: A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century Welsh Names http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/welsh13.html 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. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Raquel Buenaventura, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Amant le Marinier, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Julie Stampnitzky. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 2 Oct 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). [2] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century Welsh Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/welsh13.html