ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2283 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2283 ************************************ 29 Apr 2001 From: Judith Phillips Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us whether was an appropriate Scottish Gaelic form of for the period between 1100 and 1500. Here is the information we found. The linguistic history of the area that became modern Scotland is very complex. By the 12th century, Norse, Gaelic, English, and Norman French were being spoken, distributed roughly as follows: Norse, spoken in the far north and the western isles; English, spoken mainly in the southeast; Gaelic, spoken through much of the country; and Norman French, spoken by Anglo-Norman settlers and their Scoto-Norman descendents, mostly in the south. From around the 14th century, the two main languages spoken in Scotland were Gaelic, spoken in the Highlands and Western Isles, and Scots, spoken in the Lowlands, including the royal court and towns. Gaelic was the same language spoken in Ireland at this time; Scots was closely related to contemporary English. Norn (a form of Norse) as well as Scots were spoken in the Northern Isles through the 16th century. The languages were very different and had different naming customs. There was some mixing of names from the different cultures, but most names were not adopted into all of the cultures. Therefore, the culture you choose for your persona will determine how your name should be constructed. You wrote that you are interested in a Scottish Gaelic name, so we'll focus on that culture; but we'll discuss other naming systems of Scotland along the way, too. The name is of Germanic origin; the Normans brought it to England in the Old French form [1]. Although there was an Old English cognate , it appears that was brought to Scotland and Ireland by the Anglo-Normans [2, 3, 4]. We found the following examples of in England in your period [2]: Bernardus 1086, 1186-1219 Bernard 12th century Barnard 15th century We found no evidence that the name was used by Gaelic speakers in Scotland or Ireland in your period. We did find several examples of the name in 12th century Irish records [5]: Ord San Bernard do thionnscnadh. 1113 i mainistir S Bernard h-i c-Clairualis h-i/ f-Francoibh 1148 Naoimh Bernard 1184 All three of these examples appear to refer to one of the saints named , or else to a monastery named after him, rather than to a native Irish man. Therefore, while these examples do show us how the name was spelled in Gaelic in your period, we have no evidence that Irish Gaels used as a name in your period. We did not find any example of your spelling and we believe that it is unlikely to have been used in your period, although it does appear to be the standard modern Irish Gaelic spelling [3, 6]. The Scoto-Norman name pool was very similar to the Anglo-Norman name pool, and it appears that the Scoto-Normans used from the 12th century on. Later in your period, might have been used by Lowland Scots. We found the following examples of in Scotland in your period [7]: Bernard, chaplain of Dunkeld Bernard filius Briani, temp. William the Lion (1165-1214) Adam Bernard (also listed as Bernak) 1296 Bernard, Abbot of Arbroath 1307-1329 Alexander Bernard, cellarer of the Abbey of Cupar Angus 1492 James Bernard, tenant of part of Kethyk belonging to the same house (i.e. Cupar Angus) 1495 With one possible exception, these names appear to belong to Scoto-Normans or Lowland Scots. These cultures are outside the scope of this letter; please contact us again if you are interested in constructing a name for one of them. During the 12th century and early 13th centuries there was a good deal of mixing between Scoto-Norman and Gaelic cultures in the future Lowlands, and this mixing was reflected in the naming patterns of that period. During this time it would not necessarily have been unusual for a Gaelic family to give its children Norman-origin names, even if those same names were not used by Gaels later. Our example of (between 1165 and 1214) may in fact be such an individual; certainly it falls within the right time frame. is a name that was found in Gaelic, but was also adopted by the Normans from Breton. [8, 9] So, it is impossible to say if is a Scottish Gaelic name or a Norman one. Therefore, the use of as a Scottish Gaelic name is highly speculative. If one assumes that Gaels in 12th and 13th century Scotland adopted a form of , then the spellings found in Irish documents are reasonable guesses at the form it would have taken. Under this assumption, a Gaelic name like is a plausible re-creation for your period. For more information on constructing a complete Gaelic name for the 12th-13th centuries, please see the following article: "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.shtml Gaelic was rarely used as a written language in period Scotland. If your name had been recorded in writing in the 12th-13th centuries, it would not necessarily have been in Gaelic. For example, might have been recorded (in Latin) as . I hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please feel free to write 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 Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Adelaide de Beaumont, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Juliana de Luna, and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. For the Academy, Adeliza de Saviniaco 29 April 2001 ------------------------------------ References: [1] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). s.n. Barnard. [2] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). s.n. Bernard. [3] Woulfe, Patrick, _Irish Names for Children_ (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1974). s.n. Bearna/rd. [4] There were several medieval saints named , the most important of whom was Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived from 1091-1153. While his influence may have contributed to the popularity of the name, appears to have been established in Continental Europe well before his time [2]. Any increase in popularity due to him would have occurred well after 1100. [5] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986). s.n. Bernard. [6] We did find the spelling dated to 1584 [7]. The notation represents an underlined that was used in this source to represent "long ". Since long may also be written as , the 16th century spelling appears to represent a shift towards the modern Gaelic spelling . [7] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98)./ v. 2 entries M1113.1, M1148.3, v. 3 entry 1184.7, v. 5 entry M1584.12. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005A (v.1) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005C (v.3) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005E (v.5) [8] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Dated Names Found in O/ Corra/in & Maguire's Irish Names" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999) [http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/ocm/]. [9] Reaney & Wilson, op. cit., s.n. Brian.