ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2170 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2170 ************************************ 14 Dec 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a 15th century Wallachian man. Here is what we have found. You've chosen a fine name, but that particular spelling wouldn't have been used as early as the 15th century. and are standard modern forms of two names that were quite common in 15th-16th century Hungarian. Adding <-fi> to your father's name was a standard way to construct a patronymic byname: means "Miklo/s son of Ferenc" in modern Hungarian [1]. In the 15th century, we would expect the same name to have been written or [2]. Hungarian pronunciation underwent a substantial change in the last centuries of our period, so we're not sure how this name would have been pronounced in your period. The given name was either \MIHK-lohs\ or \MIHK-losh\, the byname \FEHR-ench-fih\ or \FEHR-ents-fih\. 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 Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 14 Dec 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Walraven van Nijmegen, "Hungarian Names 101" (WWW: Brian R. Speer, Privately published, 1998). http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1336/magyarnames101.html [2] Ka/zme/r Miklo/s, "Re/gi Magyar Csala/dnevek Szo/ta/ra: XIV-XVII Sza/zad" (Budapest, 1993), s.n. Miklo/s, Ferenc, Ferencfi.