ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2119 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2119 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 14 Oct 2000 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an appropriate name for a woman living in France between 1100 and 1400. Here is the information we have found. appears as a given name in some versions of Malory's _Le Morte d'Arthur_. [1] We could not find recorded as the name of a real person, either in Britain or in France, at any time in our period. [2] It is most commonly found as the name of an imaginary place, also spelled , often associated with King Arthur. It is purported to have been located near Cornwall until inundated by the sea, the Scilly Isles supposedly all that remains above water. [3] There are, however, similar names which are appropriate for your time period and location. is an attested masculine given name [4]; we find it, as well as the diminutive feminine form (pronounced \lee-oh-NET-@\, where @ represents the sound "a" in "about") recorded in the 1292 census of Paris. [5] [6] We also find the diminutive form (pronounced \lee-oh-NEES\), but there is insufficient information to determine whether the name is used for a man or a woman; based on naming patterns of the time, we feel it is more likely a masculine name. Although <-esse> is a common ending used to convert otherwise masculine words and titles to a feminine sense, we do not find it used in names for your period and culture, so we cannot recommend as a plausible recreation. Other forms appear in French romances of your period; it isn't clear that these were actually used by real people, but they are constructed according to patterns common in medieval French, so they are certainly reasonable choices: , , , , , . [7] It would be reasonable to replace the first vowel with 'y' in any of these names. We also find forms similar to used as bynames rather than given names. A woman named from Lyons, in Eastern France, might be known as (meaning literally, "Marie from Lyons"). is found as a Provencal version of the same phrase as used in the south of France. [8, 9] It would not be appropriate for someone from Orleans, and again, it is not a given name. If you would like to use as a byname, you will need to choose a given name which is compatible [10]; please write again if this is a possibility which interests you. Orleans is a city in the Loire Valley; it is a fine choice for forming your byname. For your period, the spelling of the city name would be different; the 1292 Paris data gives , which is pronounced \or-lee-ENS\. [5] The preposition is in French, and it generally contracts to before words beginning with vowels. would be a fine name for your period and culture. We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. I was assisted in researching and preparing this letter by Amant le Marinier, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Barak Raz, Dietmar von Straubing, Julie Stampnitzky, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 14 October 2000 References: [1] Caxton, William, and H. Oskar Sommer, eds., _Le Morte d'Arthur_ by Syr Thomas Malory, with an essay on Malory's prose style by Andrew Lang, (David Nutt, London, 1889). [Book Seven: the tale of syr Gareth of Orkeney, Capitulum xiij, "is not your name Lynet said he / ye sir said she /and my lady my susters name is dame Lyonesse".] [2] Like modern authors, period authors often gave their characters names that weren't used by real people in their time; so the fact that a name appears in literature doesn't mean that it was ever used by real people. Names from literature often became popular as names for children, but we found no such example of and do not believe it came into general use. Further, it follows no estabished naming patterns in either English or French, so we do not consider it even a likely recreation. [3] Paxton,John and Geoffrey Payton, _The Penguin Dictionary of Proper Names_, (Penguin Viking, New York, 1991) s.n. Lyonesse. [4] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse,1987), s.n. Lyon. [5] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997), [URL:http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html], accessed 14 October 2000, s.nn. Lyonnete [une] nie\ce, Lyonis, Papin d'Orliens. [6] Although naming practices varied throughout France during your period, we would expect that names in Orleans would be similar to those found in Paris. [7] Flutre, Louis-Fernand, _Table des noms propres avec toutes leurs variantes, figurant dans les romans du Moyen Age e/crits en franc,ais ou en provenc,al et actuellement publie/s ou analyse/s_ (Poitiers: Centre d'e/tudes supe/rieures de civilisation me/die/vale, 1962). [8] Talan Gwynek, "Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999) [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/latefrenchfem/], accessed 14 October 2000. [9] Although these names were recorded well after your specified period, we think they are appropriate for at least the last century you are considering (1300-1400). [10] Provencal (properly spelled with c-cedilla), also known as Occitan or Langue d'Oc, was a language spoken in the south of France through much of our period. It was a member of the same family of languages as French, Italian, and Spanish, but distinct from all of them. Provencal names would not be considered "French", nor would we expect to find a French given name combined with a Provencal byname.