ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2414 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2414 ************************************ 25 Nov 2001 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Scottish Gaelic woman living around 1150. Here's what we've found. You've chosen a plausible name for a woman whose family had connections with the Norman community, but you've used an unlikely mixture of spellings and your pronunciation isn't quite right. is a later-period spelling of a name that was in your period [1, 2]. It was pronounced roughly \EEV-yin~\. The symbol \n~\ represents the sound of the in French or Italian or of the n-tilde in Spanish words like . The slash in the name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. is a Gaelic form of (John). It was used in Irish Gaelic in your period in references to Saint John and the variant was used for several non-Gaels mentioned in Irish records [3, 4, 5], but we haven't found an example of it used by a Gael as a given name on its own until after your period. With the Norman settlement in Scotland that began in the 12th century, Norman names began to spread into Gaelic usage. We know that eventually was common among Scottish Gaels [7], but we don't know when it came into use. It is plausible that it could have been used by 1150 in a Gaelic family with close ties to the Normans. An alternative is the compound given name , literally "servant of [saint] John", which was in use in Ireland in your period [3, 4, 5]. This kind of compound was commonly used in Gaelic to honor a saint whose name was considered too holy for normal use. The name was pronounced roughly \MAL yOAN~\, where the \A\ in the first syllable is pronounced like the in and \OA\ stands for the vowel in the word . In your name, you'd use the same spelling but a different pronunciation, \VAL yOAN~\. The change in pronunciation is a consequence of certain grammatical rules in Gaelic that apply in women's names. is a fine name, common among Scottish Gaels in your period [6]. The word "daughter" is correctly spelled for your period, but is a later-period spelling of the lenited genitive form of "son". It appears as in a 12th century Scottish Gaelic source, and was pronounced \vek\ [6]. "Lenited" means "pronounced with a softer sound"; it's something that happens in some grammatical circumstances in Gaelic. The genitive form of a word is the possessive form, equivalent to adding <'s> in English. Putting it all together, is a plausible name for a 12th century Scottish Gaelic woman whose family had connections to the new Norman settlers. That name would have been pronounced \EEV-yin~ EEN-y@n yOAN~ vek DHOHV-nahl~\. \@\ stands for the sound of the in , \DH\ for the sound of the in , and \OH\ for the vowel sound in . \l~\ represents the sound of the in Spanish or the in French . A slightly less speculative name is . We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Mari neyn Brian, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 25 Nov 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals: Feminine Names" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/ [2] 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/ [3] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annals of Tigernach" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1996), entry T1172.5 . http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100002/ [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), entries U1127.9 , U1172.3 , and others. U1177.1 refers to the Norman . http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100001 [5] 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), entry M1125.1 , M1153.1 , and others. M1171.17 and M1171.2 and refer to Scandinavians from the Orkneys. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005B (v.2, M903-M1171). [6] Krossa, Sharon L. (Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte), "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names", (WWW: Privately published, 18 June 1997). http://www.MedievalScotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.shtml [7] A photograph of the "1467 MS", a Gaelic genealogical manuscript, which is shelf-marked 72.1.1 in the Scottish National Library. Colm O'Boyle has kindly helped with our transcriptions from this manuscript.