ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2356 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2356 ************************************ 12 Dec 2001 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether the name was suitable for an upper class woman in northeastern France, Luxembourg, or neighboring parts of Germany around 1520. This region has an especially complicated linguistic history. For centuries it has been home to dialects of both French and German. Even today Luxembourg is trilingual: the language of government is French, that of business and the press is standard German, and in their homes most Luxembourgers speak Letzeburgisch, a very different German dialect. [1] Similarly, in parts of Lorraine in northeastern France many people still speak a Germanic dialect. [2] Indeed, it wasn't until the first half of the 16th century that Parisian French completely replaced the local written standard in the official documents of this part of France. [3] Needless to say, this greatly complicates the naming traditions of the region. To make matters worse, we don't have any data for that region from the 15th and 16th centuries. We do have data showing that was fairly common in Metz in the late 13th century, along with the variants and . [4] (Metz is in Lorraine, about 40 miles south of the city of Luxembourg.) We have also found and in Bruges, in northwestern Belgium, between 1400 and 1550. [5] In Wu"rzburg, Germany, the mother of a man who was living in 1454 was called in a document written in Latin. (Here stands for u-umlaut.) The same document mentions the deaths of two other women named ; the entries aren't dated but are written in hands that can be dated to the middle and to the early or middle 15th century, respectively. [6] However, this is from about 180 miles east of Luxembourg and in a slightly different German dialect area. The area north of Frankfurt is closer both geographically and dialectally, and here we found one instance of from the 15th century. [7] The evidence is slim and indirect, but on the whole it suggests that , though probably not common in your period and region, was nevertheless probably in use. It was pronounced roughly \kris-TEE-n@\ in both French and German. (Here \@\ stands for the sound of the in the words and .) By the early 16th century most upper-class families in the region had inherited surnames. [8] Any descriptive meaning associated with a surname would have applied to an ancestor and only coincidentally to someone living in 1520. It also appears that double surnames were very unusual; we cannot rule out the possibility, but we have not seen any examples and therefore recommend that you stick with just one. We have not seen a French surname or byname with the preposition 'in'. The byname 'at or of the church', however, is attested in Picardy in the 14th and 15th centuries and remains quite common in modern France in the form . [9, 10] (The slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter.) In some form, therefore, it is probably quite appropriate for northeastern France in the early 16th century. We don't know what the local vernacular form would have been, but in official records the name might well have appeared in the standard French form . In Central French, the language of Paris, this would have been pronounced roughly \d@ lay-GLEEZ\ (or in very careful educated speech \d@ lay-GLEE-z@\). As a byname usually referred originally to a minor church functionary (e.g., a beadle), though it may occasionally have been used for someone who simply lived near a church. You suggested that such a surname might have arisen from a family's patronage of the Church, but this seems extremely unlikely. We have never seen an example of such a genesis for a byname, and we think it very likely that anyone of sufficient standing and substance to offer significant patronage already had an established byname or surname. The surname is a bit more problematic. There is evidence that the byname 'precious, dear, worthy' was used in England by the Anglo-Normans, and there are modern French surnames showing that the masculine form was used to form compound bynames like 'dear son'. [11, 12] Unfortunately, we have no examples of a byname 'the precious, the dear, the worthy' or its feminine counterpart or of a modern surname that is unambiguously descended from such a byname. Complicating the problem is the fact that such a modern surname would probably be spelled and would therefore be indistinguishable from the identical German surname, which originally meant something like 'feudal vassal, feudal tenant'. [13] This name was pronounced roughly \LEH-chehr\, where \ch\ stands for the soft German sound of . [14] It's even possible that in the border region including Lorraine and Luxembourg the German name might occasionally have been 'Frenchified' to [8]. In short, while we would not be surprised to find as a surname in the early 16th century, we have no good evidence for it and therefore cannot recommend it as the best historical re-creation. In Central French it would have been pronounced roughly \l@ SHAIR\; we don't know whether the pronunciation would have been significantly different in the local dialects of the northeast. We did however find a somewhat similar-sounding French surname that is less problematic. In the department of Aisne, just a bit to the west, is the town of Che/ry-le\s-Pouilly, known simply as at least as late as 1389. [15] It is likely that this is one source of the modern French surnames and , by way of an earlier 'of or from Chery'. [16] Both and are probably entirely appropriate early 16th century surnames in at least the French-speaking part of your region. In Central French they would have been pronounced roughly \sheh-REE\ and \d@ sheh-REE\, but again we don't know how they would have sounded in the northeastern local dialects. To sum up, is probably a reasonable choice of given name for the time and place in question. The surname is probably a fine choice for the French-speaking part of the region, but we don't know exactly what form it would have taken in the local dialects. The surname is somewhat plausible, but we have no good evidence for it; the surnames and , on the other hand, are probably fine choices. In the German-speaking parts of the region the name would be a good choice. Ursula Georges, Margaret Makafee, Arval d'Espas Nord, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Barak Raz, and Walraven van Nijmegen also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been useful. We apologize for having been so slow, and we hope that you will nevertheless not hesitate to write again if you have any further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 12 December 2001 ===== Notes and References: [1] Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages (London: Bloomsbury, 1998); s.n. Luxemburgish. [2] Walter, Henriette. French Inside Out. Trans. Peter Fawcett (New York: Routledge, 1994); p. 92. [3] Lodge, R. Anthony. French: from Dialect to Standard (New York: Routledge, 1993); p. 123. [4] Jacobsson, Harry. E/tudes d'Anthroponymie Lorraine: les Bans de Tre/fonds de Metz (1267-1298) (Go"teborg: Gumperts Fo"rlag, 1955). [5] Luana de Grood. 'Flemish Names from Bruges, 1400-1600' (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/bruges/ [6] Engel, Wilhelm. Das Seelbuch der Liebfrauenbruderschaft zu Wu"rzburg (12.-15. Jahrhundert). Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Bistums und Hochstifts Wu"rzburg, Band VII (Wu"rzburg: Kommissionsverlag Ferdinand Scho"ningh, 1953); pp. 33, 76, 77, and nn. 42, 488, 501. [7] Mulch, Roland. Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum Namenmaterial aus Arnsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert. Quellen und Forschungen zur Hessischen Geschichte, 29 (Darmstadt und Marburg: Hessische Historische Kommission Darmstadt und Historische Kommission fu"r Hessen, 1974); p. 40. [8] Dauzat, Albert. Les noms de famille de France. 2nd ed. (Paris: Payot, 1949); p. 231ff. [9] Morlet, Marie-The/re\se. E/tude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIV3, XVe sie\cles (Amiens, Muse/e de Picardie, 1967). [10] Dauzat, Albert. Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de Famille et Pre/noms de France (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987); s.n. . [11] Reaney, P.H. & R.M. Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); s.n. . [12] Dauzat, Dictionnaire E/tymologique, s.v. . [13] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann. Etymologisches Wo"rterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960); s.n. . [14] If you're not familiar with the German sound, you can substitute the somewhat similar \hy\ sound at the beginning of the name , pronounced \hyoo\. [15] Morlet, Marie-The/re\se. Les noms de personne sur le territoire de l'ancienne Gaule. Vol. III (Paris: E/ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1985); p. 56b. [16] Dauzat, Dictionnaire E/tymologique, s.n. .