ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2211 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2211 ************************************ From: "Brian M. Scott" 25 Mar 2001 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You told us that you have chosen the given name for an English woman living in the year 1230 and asked for our help in finding a last name. You said that you live in a section of town called Terra Verde and were hoping to use as an English translation. The given name was rare, but we have found it recorded once in Kent in 1231-32. It is simply the feminine form of the Latin adjective meaning 'admired' and is one of many examples of the 13th century English vogue for Classical and other unusual names. [1] Although 'green earth' is a possible translation of , the word and its older forms are rare in English place- names. [2,3] Therefore we can't recommend , even in a 13th century spelling like . Fortunately, there are quite a few authentic medieval place-names that have the same or similar meaning. We'll suggest some of these, but we think that the specific forms that we cite will be easier to interpret if we first give a brief explanation of how geographical designations were used in personal names. A geographical designation added to a given name to identify a person more specifically is called a 'locative byname'. A locative byname can be formed from a place-name, in which case it's called a toponymic byname; is an example. Or it can be formed from a feature of the local landscape, like a hill, a prominent tree, or a mill, in which case it's called a topographical byname; 'at the mill' is an example. Toponymic bynames usually tell where someone came from or where he held land; topographical bynames, on the other hand, usually tell where he lived. In your period the two can be hard to distinguish, since some topographic descriptions were still in the process of turning into genuine place-names, and others were nearly identical to actual place-names. Take for example the locative term , literally 'green field'. The second element, <-feld>, is from the Old English term , the ancestor of our word , which in your period was still found as . It originally meant 'tract of open country', but by your period it had come to mean 'land for pasture or cultivation'. [4] The bynames and would obviously be topographic, for someone living 'at the green field'. The bynames and might also have this sense, but more likely they are toponymic, for someone from a place named . And the plain byname could be either. To make sense of the variety of forms, it's also useful to know that in your period official documents were generally written in Latin or sometimes French, partly to distance them from the vernacular. Given names, for instance, were almost invariably Latinized, so that we see , not . Bynames were less subject to this distancing, but certain modifications were conventional. In particular, English prepositions and articles were very often replaced by their French equivalents, so that we are likely to find , with French and English , instead of the completely English . Similarly, we almost always find rather than . All of the and forms that we'll cite or suggest should therefore be understood as written forms, suitable for documentary use but not likely to have been used in everyday English speech. Latin can be translated 'land' as well as 'earth', so one natural alternative to 'green earth' is 'green land'. We actually found as a field-name ca.1304; here is a dialect variant of , and the term probably refers to a particularly fertile strip of arable land in a common field. [5,6] Both elements of the name go back to Old English, so it's entirely plausible such that a strip might already have been described as the in your period. We therefore think that the topographical bynames and would be entirely suitable bynames for your period. (We'll give pronunciations all in one place after we've discussed the possibilities.) Another possibility is the term that we already mentioned. It's not quite as close as to being a direct translation of , but it has the advantage of being better documented: the place now called in Lincolnshire was recorded as ca.1150, and we've also found the byname in 1242. [7,8] We have not found examples of the explicitly topographical forms and , but they would also be authentic for your period. (Here the parentheses indicate that the final <-e> is optional.) Yet another term of this type is or 'green field'. The second element is from the same Old English word that gave us the unit of area , but it also meant 'a plot of arable or cultivated land'. Our earliest citations are 1332 and 1335, but and are very plausible spellings for your period. [9] Explicitly topographical forms would include and , and the ambiguous is also possible. We found one more byname referring to residence by a green tract of land, 1275; here means 'green, grassy spot'. However, you should be aware that this byname was very rare and has been found only in Suffolk. [10] We also found many locative bynames referring to more specific features of the landscape that were particularly green and verdant, especially hills, mounds, valleys, and hollows. These are less apt as translations of , but since some of them might describe your local topography, we've included a few. (If you're interested in looking at a more comprehensive list, please write us again.) The bynames 1200, 1221, and 1270 are based on different dialect forms of the word for 'hill'. [11] The last of these matches the dialect of Kent, where we found the name . A completely English form would be 'at the green hill'. The most common term for a valley was Middle English . [12] It appears in the place-name recorded as in 1241, as in 1242, and in the personal name in 1270; is probably the most typical spelling for your period. [13] Finally, there is the rather general Middle English ; it could refer to a human habitation, as in the modern word , but it could also mean simply 'a place, a spot', so that a was most likely just a green place, a place with relatively lush vegetation. This compound is the source of at least four place-names in southeastern England, two of which were recorded as in 1254 and 1261, respectively, and it also appears in the byname in 1230. [14,15] would be a characteristic spelling for your period. The various place-names and topographic terms were pronounced roughly as follows, where \@\ stands for the sound of in and : Greneland \GRAY-n@-LAHND\ Grenefelde \GRAY-n@-FEL-d@\ Grenacre \GRAYN-AHK-r@\ Grenaker \GRAYN-AH-k@r\ Grenegres \GRAY-n@-GRES\ Grenehell \GRAY-n@-HEL\ Grendene \GRAYN-d@-n@\ Grenestede \GRAY-n@-STEH-d@\ The contraction 'at the' was pronounced roughly \AH-t@\; was \ohf\, where \oh\ stands for the sound of the in . To sum up, the given name , though doubtless uncommon even during the 13th century fashion for such names, is attested from 1231-2 and is therefore suitable for an Englishwoman living in the first half of the 13th century. Locative bynames referring to green fields, hills, valleys, etc. were not uncommon; all of the examples for which we've given pronunciations would be very appropriate. They could be used without any 'connective tissue', as in ; as descriptions of a place of residence, as in ; or as places of origin, as in . In an official document would usually be replaced by or , and would almost always be replaced by . Adelaide de Beaumont, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Juliana de Luna, Julie Stampnitzky, Maridonna Benvenuti, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, and Ivanor of Sighty Crag also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been helpful; please don't hesitate to write us again if any part of it is not clear or if you have further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek and Dietmar von Straubing 24 March 2001 ===== References and Notes: [1] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); p. xl. [2] Smith, A.H. English Place-Name Elements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956); s.v. . (Here <{dh}> stands for the letter edh, or crossed-d, that looks like a backward <6> with a short stroke through the upright part.) [3] For the record, is actually a Latin-Spanish hybrid; the Latin and Spanish and versions are and , respectively. [4] Smith s.v. . The modern meaning of 'enclosed field' dates only from the later 14th century. [5] Field, John. A History of English Field-Names (New York: Longman, 1993); p. 154. [6] Smith, s.v. . [7] Ekwall, Eilert. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place- names, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); s.n. . [8] Reaney & Wilson s.n. . [9] Ibid. s.n. . The earlier spellings of the second element can be seen in 1229 'bean field', 1208 'field by a gate', and 1212 'flax field' (Ekwall, op. cit., s.nn. , , ). [10] Reaney & Wilson s.n. . [11] Ibid., s.n. . The apostrophe in represents some scribal abbreviation mark; here, if it isn't simply ornamental, it probably stands for a missing . The was pronounced like the German u-umlaut in or the in the French word . [12] Smith s.v. . [13] Ekwall s.n. . The name also appears in the 1240s as and , but these were probably relatively new spellings and resulted from confusion with another common place-name element, <-dun(e)> or <-don(e)>, meaning 'hill'. [14] Ibid. s.nn. , . [15] Reaney & Wilson s.n. .