ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2321
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2321
************************************

From: "Brian M. Scott" 
31 Jul 2001

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked whether <Thorsten Gothenson> would be an authentic 
Old Norse name for the son of a man named <Gothen Ky/lansson> 
sometime between the years 850 and 965.  (Throughout this report 
we'll use a slash to stand for an acute accent over the preceding letter. 
Symbols in curly braces, like '{TH}', stand for non-ASCII characters; 
they are described in the footnotes when they first occur.)     

The name <Thorsten> is an excellent choice, though the form isn't 
quite right for your period.  It's convenient to postpone the discussion 
of suitable forms until after we've discussed both elements of the 
name, so for now I'll use the standardized Old Norse form 
<{TH}orsteinn>. [1]  

In various slightly different forms the name <{TH}orsteinn> seems to 
have been used throughout the Norse-speaking world at least from 
the 9th century onward.  Two early instances of the name from the 
Icelandic sagas are <{TH}orsteinn Ingo/lfs son>, whose father was 
the first settler in Iceland in 874, and <{TH}orsteinn rau{dh}i> 
'Thorstein (the) red', whose father <O/leifr inn hvi/ti> or <O/la/fr inn 
hvi/ti> 'Olaf the white' took Dublin in 853. [2, 3, 4]   

Further evidence that the name was in widespread early use is the fact 
that it is the most common name of Scandinavian origin in Normandy, 
with many early instances in record.  It was also in use in England in 
the Danelaw before the Norman Conquest, as was its Danish and 
Swedish pet form <To/sti>. [5, 6]    

The patronymic <Gothenson>, on the other hand, is a problem.  
<Gothen> is an unattested late spelling of <Gu{dh}ini>, which is how 
the Icelanders borrowed the Old English name <Godwine>.  The 
earliest Icelandic example of this borrowed name is from the 11th 
century. [7]  


The name subsequently made its way to Norway, where the earliest 
known examples are from about 1240, generally in the forms 
<Gu{dh}ini> and <Godene>.  Around 1320 the Norwegians began 
to favor forms without the final vowel, e.g. <Goden> and 
<Go{dh}en>, and from the 15th century we have a few examples of 
the spelling <Godhen>. [8, 9]  We have no example of the spelling 
<Gothen>, and in general the spelling <th> was very rarely used as a 
substitute for the letter <{dh}>; examples in other names are by and 
large from the 15th century.    

In Denmark borrowings of <Godwine> occur in the 11th century, but 
they are very similar to the Old English name: <Godvine, Gvdewin> 
1047-76, <Godvnne> 1076-80, <Godvine> 1080-86, and 
<Godvvin> 1080-86. [10]  The name was rare in Sweden in any 
form.  The earliest known Swedish instances are <Godwinus> and 
<Goduuinus> from the 12th century, and there are very few later 
examples of any kind. [11]   

To sum up, the name doesn't appear in Scandinavia in any form until 
at least two generations after the end of your period, when it appears 
in Iceland as <Gu{dh}ini>.  The form <Gothen> isn't attested; it might 
have been used occasionally in the 15th century, but even then 
<Godhen> is much likelier.  Therefore we can't recommend any form 
of <Gothenson> as good historical re-creation for your period.   

An Icelander living in the middle of the 11th century or later, however, 
might very well have been the son of a man named <Gu{dh}ini>, in 
which case he'd have been known as <Gu{dh}ina son>.  
(<Gu{dh}ina> is the genitive, or possessive form of <Gu{dh}ini>, 
much as <John's> is the possessive form of <John>.)  Indeed, a 
<{TH}orsteinn Gu{dh}ina son> actually appears in Icelandic records 
from 1241-43. [7]  This spelling of the name would be suitable from 
the mid-11th century on for an Icelander writing in Roman letters.      

At the beginning of that period, however, runes were more common, 
and the name would very likely have been written in runes.  We can't 
reproduce the runes directly in this letter, so we'll use the conventional 
system for representing them by Roman letters.  In that system the 
normal early runic spelling of the name is <{th}orstain gu{th}ina sun>. 
You can find illustrations of several versions of the runic alphabet on 
the web:      

    http://www.arild-hauge.com/enruner.htm

The version labelled NORWEGIAN-DANISH RUNES FROM 
THE 800'S would be appropriate for your period.  It is shown with 
the same conventional Roman-alphabet labels that we're using.  Be 
careful with <a> and <r>: for these you want the tenth and fifth runes, 
not the fourth and last.  

Note that the spelling <{th}orstain gu{th}ina sun> is suitable only with 
the runic alphabet; in the Roman alphabet the name would be written 
<{TH}orsteinn Gu{dh}ina son>.  It would have been pronounced 
roughly \THOR-stayn GOO-dhee-nah-sohn\, where \TH\ stands for 
the sound of <th> in <thing>, \dh\ stands for the sound of <th> in 
<this>, \OO\ stands for the sound of <oo> in <hoot>, and \oh\ stands 
for the sound of the <o> in <more>.   

A bit later, a 14th century Norwegian might have been 
<Godenesson> 'son of Godene', and in the 15th century he might 
have been <Godensson> or <Godhensson> 'son of God(h)en'.  It's 
possible that in 15th century Norway the patronymic might rarely have 
been written <Gothensson>.  (Nothing similar appears to have been 
used in Denmark or Sweden.)    

In this later period the name <{TH}orsteinn> appears in Norway in a 
great variety of forms.  The Icelandic form <{TH}orsteinn> is suitable 
in the early 14th century as are the characteristically Norwegian forms 
<{TH}orst{ae}in>, <{TH}orst{ae}inn>, <Thorst{ae}in>, and 
<Thorst{ae}inn>. [12]  Later in the 14th and on into the 15th century 
we find <{TH}orsten> and <Thorsten>, and in the 15th century there 
are such forms as <Torstein>, <Torst{ae}in>, and <Torsten>. [13]  
These can be freely combined with contemporary forms of the 
patronymic.  In particular, <Thorsten Godhensson> is a fine name for 
a 15th century Norwegian; it would have been pronounced roughly 
\THOR-stayn GOH-dhen-sohn\.   

Finally, the given name <{TH}orsteinn> itself is fine for your period, 
though it would have been written in runes in the form that we've 
represented in Roman letters by <{th}orstain>.  At that early date it 
would have been pronounced roughly \THOR-stine\, where the last 
syllable rhymes with <mine>.  It could authentically be combined with 
a patronymic formed from a name in use at that time or with 
descriptive bynames of other types.  Many bynames from your period 
can be found in the article by Lindorm Eriksson that is available on the 
web at:   

    http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/lindorm/runicbynames/main.htm 

The article gives standardized spellings appropriate to a later period, 
but we would be happy to help you find the appropriate runic 
equivalents.   

Lindorm Eriksson, Arval Benicoeur, Hartmann Rogge, Elsbeth Anne 
Roth, Maridonna Benvenuti, and Solveig Throndardottir also 
contributed to this letter.  We hope that it's been of use and that you'll 
not hesitate to write again if you have further questions.   

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek
31 July 2001

=====

References and Notes:

[1] <{TH}> stands for the letter thorn, which looks like a <b> 
superimposed on a <p> in such a way that their loops coincide.  

[2] The <{dh}> stands for the letter edh (or eth), which looks like a 
backwards <6> with a small tick through the upper part.  

[3] Arno/rsson, Einar, ed.  Landna/mabo/k I/slands (Reykjavi/k: 
Helgafell, 1948); pp. 8-12, 128.  The sagas in question are based on 
an oral tradition that was first written down some 250 years after the 
Norse settlement of Iceland.  Doubtless many of the details are 
wrong, but <{TH}orsteinn> is one of the most frequently occurring 
names and is certainly not a later invention.   

[4] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, 'The Annals of Ulster 
(WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University 
College, Cork, Ireland, 1997), entry U853.2.  Note that <Amlai/b> is 
the Old Irish spelling of the Old Norse names <O/leifr> and 
<O/la/fr>.  
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100001/

[5] Fellows Jensen, Gillian.  Scandinavian Personal Names in 
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (Copenhagen: 1968); s.nn. 
<{TH}orsteinn>, <To/sti>.   

[6] von Feilitzen, Olof.  'The Personal Names and Bynames of the 
Winton Domesday', in Martin Biddle, ed., Winchester in the Early 
Middle Ages, Winchester Studies 1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 
1976); s.n. <Turstinus>.   

[7] 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. <Gu{dh}ini>.  (Here <a"> 
stands for a-umlaut, and <a*> stands for an <a> with a small circle 
directly above it.)  

[8] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed.  Norsk personnamnleksikon.  2nd ed. 
(Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.v. Godvin.   

[9] Lind s.n. <Go{dh}in>.

[10] Knudsen, Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby.  
Danmarks Gamle Personnavne.  Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 
1936-48); s.n. <Godwin>.   

[11] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn.  Vol. 1- (Uppsala: 1967-. bd. 
2, h. 7: isbn: 91-7402-136-2; Bloms Boktryckeri AB: Lund 1981); 
s.n. <Godwinus>.     

[12]  Here <{ae}> stands for the a-e-ligature formed by squashing 
<a> and <e> together so that the right edge of the <a> coincides with 
the left edge of the <e>.   

[13] Lind s.n. <{TH}orsteinn>, where many other later variants are 
also noted.