ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2167 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2167 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 23 Jan 2001 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a woman living in Ireland between 1050 and 1100. Here is the information we have found. You mentioned that you found in several baby name books, and that you thought it was a feminine form of . Unfortunately, most baby-name books aren't good sources for medieval re-creation. They are primarily written for the purpose of giving parents long lists of varied, attractive names to consider. The author is probably not interested in how old the name is or how it was spelled in the 11th century, if it existed at all; he's only interested in listing names. He will copy names from any useful source and might make up names to fill gaps in his lists. A name selected from such a book is probably not a medieval name; even if by chance it is, you need to check a more scholarly source to be sure. We also found at several websites [1]. These websites share the problems we find in most baby name books, and are also notoriously unreliable research tools for medieval recreation. None of the sources in which we found gave any evidence that it was a medieval name. is a modern English spelling of a masculine given name which was spelled or in your period, and later [2, 3]. was evidently coined by adding <-re> onto the masculine name; whoever did so obviously thought the changed ending made the name more "feminine-looking". In many languages and cultures, names were made feminine by changing an ending, as in the Latin from [4], or by adding an appropriate feminine suffix, as in the French from [5]. These practices vary from one culture to another, and Gaelic had no equivalent custom. Some Gaelic masculine names had feminine equivalents, like and , but the grammatical change was complex and can't be generalized to all masculine names (the slash represents an accent over the preceding letter). We have found no feminine forms of in medieval Gaelic, and we are unaware of any way to change the name so that it would be perceived as a feminine name in medieval Gaelic. The pronunciation you gave of \KON-khoh-ree\ or \KON-noh-ree\ is unlikely; the masculine form was pronounced \KOHN-khoh-var\ in your period, where the \kh\ is the hard, rasping sound of found in Scottish or German . For your period, the was still pronounced \v\; the later spelling of was an attempt to more closely match spelling with the spoken form of the language. The latter of the two pronunciations you gave is almost correct for a different name, the rare, early period masculine name , pronounced \KOHN-ey-reh\, with \ey\ as the sound in [3]. Unfortunately, we do not find a feminine form of this name, either. If you would like a somewhat similar name to , the feminine name might interest you. It was the name of a saint, and would be appropriate for your period [3]. It was pronounced \KOHN-n@\, where the \@\ represents the sound of in or . If you are interested in considering other possibilities for your given name, we invite you to write us again and we'll be happy to help. For information on how to complete your name, we recommend you read the following article, available in our library: "Quick & Easy Gaelic Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/index.shtml You will see in this article that the most common style of surname for a woman in your period was one that identified the woman as her father's daughter. For example, a woman living in the 11th century named who was a daughter of would have been known as , meaning literally 'Conna, daughter of Brian' and pronounced \KOHN-n@ EEN-y@n VREE-ahn~\. The tilde represents the sound of in Spanish and in Italian and French . (The change in spelling between and is required by Gaelic grammar; it is analogous to the change between and .) If you'd like to look at appropriate masculine names from which to chose your father's name, we recommend the article "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland", also available in our library [2]. 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. Research and commentary on this letter were provided by Arval Benicoeur, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Effrick neyn Kennyeoch, Julie Stampnitzky, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Blaise de Cormeilles and Dietmar von Straubing. For the Academy, Aryanhwy merch Catmael and Adelaide de Beaumont 22 January 2001 --------------------------------------- References: [1] We found at least five websites which listed ; http://www.newbabynameindex.com/girls.C.html is fairly representative of the type of information presented. None of the sites offer any support for the name in a medieval setting. [2] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998), s.n. Conchobor, [URL:http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100], accessed 22 January 2001. [3] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.nn. Conchobhar, Conaire, Conna. [4] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.nn. Antonia, Antony. [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), s.nn. Alain le Breton, Alainne la coiffie\re, [URL:http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html], accessed 22 January 2001.