ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2265 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2265 ************************************ 22 Apr 2001 From: Judith Phillips Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us whether the name would be appropriate for a tenth century Viking Rus man. Here is the information we found. Historians do not agree on the origin of the Rus. One hypothesis holds that they were Scandinavian Vikings who moved southward and founded a state centering on Kiev. A competing hypothesis argues that the Rus were a Slavic tribe that founded a tribal league which created the Kievan state, and that the Viking rule of Kiev was a only a brief interlude [1]. It is known for certain that Norsemen, under the leadership of Oleg or Oleh, ruler of Novgorod, conquered Kiev in the mid-9th century. However, Scandinavian influence did not last for long in Kiev, particularly not in naming. By the 10th century, the rulers of Kiev had Slavic names like and . We've found Scandinavian-origin names in Kiev as late as the 11th century, and a few (such as ) are still in use, but in general the Viking period had very little lasting impact on the Kievan namestock [2, 3, 4]. is a Russian form of the biblical name . , also spelled , was used in Russia as early as the 12th century [3, 5], but we weren't able to find an example used in your period. This is not conclusive evidence that it was not used, since we have very few sources for that period. What sources we do have show that by the 10th century approximately 14% of Russian given names were Christian or canonical names [3]. would not have been an unusual choice for a Russian Christian; however, while not totally implausible, the name is not the best historical recreation for your period. We did not find any evidence that the name was used in Scandinavia before the 13th century. We did find early examples of and , but these do not identify native Scandinavians and may have referred to foreigners or to Saint Michael. The earliest example we found that was clearly a native name was a Danish from 1215 [6, 7, 8]. Therefore, we cannot recommend any form of as good re-creation of Viking culture. is a Norse byname meaning "son of Ulfbrandr". Although the elements and <-brandr> are not uncommon [9], we found no example of the name used in any part of Scandinavia or in Russia. In addition, appears to be a West Norse form, while the Norsemen in Kiev were probably eastern. In short, while is a plausible construction of a Norse name, we cannot recommend it. Although it is very common in the Society to try to indicate mixed parentage in one's name, it simply wasn't done in period. In the rare cases when two people from different countries married, their children were named according to the naming practices of the country where they lived. If they moved from one country to another, they would either retain their original names or use local equivalents. That is to say, if a Frenchman named settled in an Italian city, he might have been known to the Italians as "Giovanni the Frenchman". If he married and had a son, the boy might be known by two forms of his name: one French, one Italian. But it would make no sense for anyone to call him something half French and half Italian. In your case, we know that Norse names did appear briefly in Russia. Historians are divided on whether the Norsemen who ruled Kiev remained and intermarried with the native Rus, gradually merging into a single culture, or whether they were simply supplanted by native Rus rulers. In our research we found no actual examples of names mixing Norse and Russian elements; we believe that a man of your culture would most likely have had an entirely Norse name, but we aren't certain. Since we haven't found the name in Russia or Scandinavia until well after your period, and we haven't found the name at all, we are not willing to speculate on what form your name might have taken. We would be happy to continue to advise you on choosing an authentic name. If you could write us again and let us know which aspects of your name are most important to you (e.g. language, period, sound, the name ) we could offer you a list of options. I hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please feel free to contact us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have any further questions. I was assisted in writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Adelaide de Beaumont, Arval Benicoeur, Lindorm Eriksson, Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, Paul Wickenden of Thanet, Pedro de Alcazar, Blaise de Cormeilles, Hartmann Rogge, and Dietmar von Straubing. For the Academy, Adeliza de Saviniaco 22 April 2001 ----------------------------------------- References: [1] "Rus", Encyclopaedia Britannica (WWW: britannica.com, 1999-2001, accessed 13 Apr 2001). http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=66111&tocid=0 [2] "Kiev: History", Encyclopaedia Britannica (WWW: britannica.com, 1999-2001, accessed 13 Apr 2001). http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=109586&tocid=13909 [3] Predslava Vydrina, "Russian Personal Names: Name Frequency in the Novgorod Birch-Bark Letters" in Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings 1997 (SCA: Rochester, NY, 1997; WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/predslava/bbl/ [4]_Nestorskro:nikan. O:versa:ttning av Gabriella Oxenstierna. Fo:rord av Per-Arne Bodin_, (Stockholm/Stehag 1998: Brutus O:stlings Bokfo:rlag Symposion, ISBN: 91-7139-307-2). A Swedish translation of "Nestor's Chronicle", i.e. "Povest vremennych ler". P. 109, year 6508 after the creation (= 1000 AD) and died. Rogned was the mother of the Prince of the Kievan state. [5] Paul Wickenden of Thanet, "A Dictionary of Period Russian Names", 3rd edition (Normal, Illinois: SCA, Free Trumpet Press West, 2000). s.n. Mikhail. [6] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). s.n. Mikia/ll. [7] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. _Norsk personnamnleksikon_, 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995). s.n. Mikael [8] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). s.n. Michael. [9] Uppsala University Department for Scandinavian Languages, "Samnordisk runtextdatabas" (WWW: Uppsala universitet, 29 Oct 1997). The database includes 135 examples of names starting with and 12 examples of Viking Age names ending <-brandr>. http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm