ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2316 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2316 ************************************ 28 May 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Viking-age Dane, and whether the element was used in Danish name in that period. Here is what we have found. In this letter, we'll use several special symbols to represent letters used in medieval Scandinavian languages. represents an 'o' with a diagonal slash through it. represents an 'a' with an acute accent mark. {TH} stands for the letter thorn, written like a lower-case 'd' and 'b' superimposed so that they share one long vertical stroke and one loop. is the standard spelling of the Old Danish form of this name [1]. is a fine Old Norse name. The most common spelling in early Danish chronicles is [2, 3]. The correct form of your full name is , pronounced \RO"-reek HAHLV-dah-nar sohn\. \O"\ represents the sound of the German o-umlaut, and the \ee\ is pronounced as in , but short in duration. The Vikings wrote in the runic alphabet. We can't reproduce runes in this letter, so we'll use a conventional modern system for representing runes with the Roman alphabet. Note that these representations would never have been used in period: For authenticity, you should either use the Roman-alphabet spellings discussed in the previous paragraphs or the actual runic spellings represented below. You can find illustrations of several versions of the runic alphabet on the web: http://www.algonet.se/~tanprod/zerunes1.htm Either version of the younger futhark (with sixteen runes each) is appropriate for your culture. Each shows the conventional Roman-alphabet labels that we're using. We have found a number of runic spellings of each of the elements of your name. The spellings of include , , and [4]. appears in many forms, the most typical being , , and . The genitive is recorded as and [5]. This data suggests that the most typical runic spelling of your name would have been . You asked whether the element was common in Danish names, and particularly whether the names , , , and were used. Quite a few names were common in Denmark, but unfortunately not any of these four [6]. The more common names are [7]: Thorbiorn: runic <{th}urbiurn> and non-runic <{TH}orbaern> 1047-76. Thorkil: runic <{th}urkal>, <{th}urkil> and many non-runic examples in a variety of spellings. Thormoth: runic <{th}urmu{th}r> and a variety of non-runic spellings. Thorsten: runic <{th}urstin>, non-runic example from the 11th century onward in various spellings. Thorth: runic <{th}ur{th}r>, non-runic citations from the 12th century onward in various spellings. If you'd like more information about one or two of these names, please write us again. Quite a few less common names are in the same reference. Swedish records document a large number of these names, as well [8]. 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 Maridonna Benvenuti, Talan Gwynek, Hartmann Rogge, and Lindorm Eriksson. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 28 May 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48), s.n. Ro|rik. [2] 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. Halfdan. [3] Knudsen s.n. Halfdan. [4] Uppsala University Department for Scandinavian Languages, "Samnordisk runtextdatabas" (WWW: Uppsala universitet, 29 Oct 1997). We found O:g 153, So: 159, U 413 and ({th} is an error for ) U 934. The code after each example identifies the inscription in which is was found. http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm [5] Peterson, Lena, "Nordiskt runnamnslexikon" (WWW: Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research, 2001), accessed 12 Apr 2001. The examples we found are: U925, UFv1973:146, Vs29; U1022(?); U229; O"g81B, So"131, So"188$, So"Fv1948;295, U34, U61, U474, U511, U749, U818; U650; So"270; U1162; genitive *749, (the second is an error for ) So"250; accusative U462A; Vg39; O"g224B, So"272, U240, U808, U1080$, U1157, DREM85;239; U231; Sm154$; U913; U153; Vg7. The code after each example identifies the inscription in which is was found. http://grimnir.dal.lu.se/runlex/ [6] Knudsen s.n. Thorarin has two examples of Danes using this name, both in the 11th century. S.n. Thorfin, their only example may refer to a Norwegian. S.n. Thorgrim, they have one Danish example and they note an Old Swedish form of the name. S.n. Thorir, they have several examples of runic <{th}uriR>; the first non-runic instance is 1278. [7] Knudsen s.nn. Thorkil, Thormoth, Thosten, Thorth. [8] Mode/er, Ivar, _Svenska Personnamn: Handbok fo:r universitetsbruk och sja:lvstudier av Ivar Mode/er utgiven av Roger Sundqvist och Carl-Erik Thors med en bibliografi av Roland Otterbjo:rk som kompletterats och omarbetats av Sigurd Fries_, 3rd ed., Anthroponymica Suecana 5 (Lund: Studentlitteratur 1989, ISBN 91-44-29033-0), p.23, s.n. Thor-.