ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2427 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2427 ************************************ 9 Dec 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether or some other form of is appropriate for a 12th to 15th century Irishwoman. Here is what we've found. is the usual modern Irish Gaelic form of , but it is not a spelling found in our period. A slash in the name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. An earlier form of the name was , also pronounced \MAR-ait\, but this form also did not develop until after our period [1]. The earliest example we find of an Irish Gael using this name is 1364. Other spellings from 15th and 16th century Irish Gaelic sources include , , and [2]. You can find others on the web at: Index of Names in Irish Annals: Feminine Names: Mairghread http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Mairghread.shtml The normalized spelling suggested by this range of spellings is [3]. All of these spellings represent the pronunciation \MAR-raik\. 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 Adelaide de Beaumont, Mari neyn Bryan, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 9 Dec 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Ma/iread. [2] 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/ [3] Gaelic orthography had fairly fixed rules; accordingly, we can construct a spelling which we have not actually found in period records. This is called a normalized spelling, which can be thought of as the theoretically correct spelling according to the rules for the period under consideration rather than the most common spellings actually found. Note that the spelling we've suggested here is appropriate only for the period in which the name was used; Gaelic spelling conventions were different in earlier periods.