ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2163 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2163 ************************************ 27 Nov 2000 From: Dietmar Greetings on behalf of the Academy! You asked for our evaluation of the name and if it would work for a 10th century Bavarian persona. Here is what we have found. You found the name in the book "Two Lives of Charlemagne". 10th century forms include: , , , and . [1] We believe the most likely High German form to be . (High German is the dialect spoken in what is now southern and central Germany.) You told us that you found on a web site that discussed the origins of names, and you intend it to mean "Steel-Warrior". While , or better, , is a modern German compound that means "steel-war", it doesn't fit any pattern of name construction that we've observed in medieval records. Descriptive bynames were rare in early medieval German. The few examples we've found were very simple and straightforward: , "hammer"; , Latin for "squinter" [2, 3]. An early medieval German man was usually known simply by a single given name. When further distinction was needed, he was most often identified as his father's son. For example, Drogo son of Isenbrant would have been called . In your period a man's name would probably only have been written in Latin, so we suggest a Latin form, . [4] To construct a surname of this type, you'll need to pick a name for your father. We thought our example might interest you because it includes an element that derives from the word "iron". Some other names based on this element are and [3]. If you like, we can suggest some other names from your culture, or you can look yourself in these articles: Early Germanic Names from Primary Sources: http://members.nbci.com/nicolaa/german.html German Given Names 1200-1250: http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/germ13/ 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 Arval Benicoeur, Hartmann Rogge and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Dietmar von Straubing 27 November, 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de Famille_ (Librairie Acade/mique Perrin, 1997) p. 74b. [2] --, _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1955). s.v. France, sub. History, sub. The Carolingians. [3] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357). p. xiii, s.n. Isenbrand [4] --, _Hildebrandslied_, "Willkommen auf der Hildebrandslied-Homepage!" (WWW: Arnd Großmann) [URL: http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/~hab/arnd/Start.html]