ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2122 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2122 ************************************ 13 Oct 2000 From: Dietmar Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked whether or would be an appropriate name for a 15th century German woman. Here is what we have found. As you noted in your request to the Academy, the given name is found in the 15th century. This name is a diminutive of , which in turn is a pet form of . It would make a fine given name for your period. [1] The Malxe is a river in the Cottbus district of Brandenburg. [2,3] Locative bynames referring to specific, named rivers are uncommon. Most often names indicating origin from a particular area would specify one of the towns in the vicinity. If you are more concerned with the sound rather than the meaning, it's quite likely that we could come up with a more probable byname with a similar sound. Please write again if this possibility interests you. River names usually take the form or instead of just . [4] This would be similar to saying someone is "from the Nile", rather than "from Nile". This also explains why the form is unlikely. It would be like a person being called 'the Nile'. We were unable to find any information on when the name came to be used or how it would have been spelled in your time period. Assuming that it existed, a locative byname would take the form , rather than . Similar examples are 1399 and 1294 (in which is a form of the preposition 'of' in the northern dialect). [5,6] In summary, is a plausible name for your period, though a bit unusual, and there is a chance that the name was spelled somewhat differently at that time. I 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 Adelaide de Beaumont, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Elsbeth Ann Roth, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Dietmar Reinhart von Straubing References: [1] Talan Gwynek, "15th-Century German Women's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997) [URL:http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/german15f.html]. [2], "Tourismusinformation 'Peitzer Land'", (Peitzer Land Tourism Information) 1999 [URL:http://peitz.de/tourismu.htm] [3] Heveller Reisen und Heveller Verlag (Heveller Tourism and Heveller Publishing), "Willkommen im Spreewald" ("Welcome to Spreewald") (WWW: Andreas Garz, 2000) [URL:http://www.heveller.de/reiseservice/spreewaldtext.htm] [4] In German, as in many other languages, all nouns are categorized grammatically in one of three genders: masculine (m), feminine (f), and neuter (n). These categories are distinguished by having different forms of the definite article. In the nominative case, the articles are (m), (f), and (n). When a noun is use as the indirect object, it takes the dative case, and the articles reflect that change becoming (m), (f), and (n). We are assuming the Malxe to be a feminine name, based on our findings. Paxton, Norman, _Teach Yourself German Grammar_, (NTC Publishing Group, 1992 ISBN: 0844237817). pp.1-2. [5] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357). s.nn. Hamm, Odermann. [6] Schwarz, Ernst, _Deutsche Namenforschung. I: Ruf- und Familiennamen_ (Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1949). p.96.