ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2336 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2336 ************************************ 21 May 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a German man in our period. This letter is a brief answer to your question. is the standard modern form of a name that was very popular in medieval German, thanks in large part to the epic hero Dietrich von Berne, who is loosely based on the 5th and 6th century historical figure of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths [1]. The name occurs in a large number of different forms depending on dialect. Thus, different forms are appropriate for different times and geographical regions. We found the exact form recorded in Silesia (eastern Germany) in 1318. Other forms of the name occur throughout the southern parts of German-speaking Europe (e.g Switzerland) in the 13th and 14th centuries [2, 3]. We are reasonably sure the name is appropriate for southern Germany from the 13th century through the 16th [4]. If you want a name suitable for another region, please write again and we'll suggest a suitable spelling. Your surname, , appears in various forms in our period. It derived from a word that meant "heaven", which was commonly used in southern Germany as the name of a field. For example, we found the partially Latinized name "at the [field called] Heaven" in Basel, 1297. A spelling more similar to the one you chose appears in the surname 1412 [5]. These two forms demonstrate that single and double 'm' and the vowels 'i' and 'y' were interchangeable in this word. We are therefore confident that is a fine name for 13th to 15th century southern Germany. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Maridonna Benvenuti, Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek, Kunegundis filia Theoderici, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 21 May 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Gillespie, George T. A Catalogue of Persons Names in German Heroic Literature (700-1600) (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1973); s.n. . [2] Talan Gwynek. 'Medieval German Given Names from Silesia' (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1998). Note that despite the title, not all of the names in this source are from Silesian records. http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/bahlow_v.htm [3] Socin, Adolf. Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch nach Oberrheinischen Quellen des Zwoelften und Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966); pp. 11-12. [4] See Academy report 2041 for more details. http://www.s-gabriel.org/2041 [5] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357), s.n. Himmel.