ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2434 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2434 ************************************ 9 Feb 2002 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether any of the following feminine names, which you found at http://www.vikinganswerlady.org/ONWomansnames.htm, would be appropriate for a woman from Orkney living sometime between 1200 and 1350: , <{AE}rnbjorg>, , and . (<{AE}> stands for the A-E-ligature, which looks like an and an squashed together to share a common upright.) You also asked how they were pronounced. The only one of these names that we can definitely place in Orkney is : a woman named was mistress of a farm on North Ronaldsay in the 1130s. [1, 2] ( is the old name of North Ronaldsay, and her name is literally 'Ragna in Rinansey'. [3]) In Norway the name is found as early as the 9th century, and by about 1300 it was fairly common. It does not seem to have reached Iceland until after 1400, however. [1] So far as we can tell, it would be entirely appropriate throughout your period. At the beginning of your period was pronounced \RAGH-nah\. Here \GH\ represents a sound not used in English; it is the voiced equivalent of the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . It is likely that by the end of your period, however, the usual pronunciation in both Orkney and Norway was something like \RAHNG-nah\. [4] is a slightly modernized form of the name , pronounced \YOE-lin\. (The slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter.) This name was apparently very rare: there seems to be only one known example, an Icelandic woman of the late 12th century whose name is recorded as . [6] We do not know whether the name was used in Orkney. Since Orkney's ties with Norway were closer than those with Iceland, the fact that the name has not been found in Norway is a bit discouraging. We cannot say that it wasn't used, but we also cannot recommend it as particularly good historical re-creation. is an unattested spelling of the Old Norse name . (Here stands for an with a hook like a reversed comma hanging from its lower edge, representing a variety of Old Norse written forms that are no longer used.) The name is found in a number of variant forms. In Iceland these include for a woman who died in 1221 and in the 1330s. In Norway they include at the end of the 13th century, in 1316, 1348, and 1358, and in 1344. We don't have any Orkney examples of the name, but since it appears to have been in widespread use during your period, it would be a reasonable choice. For much of your period it was pronounced \ARN-byorgh\ or perhaps \AR-@n-byorgh\, where \@\ stands for the sound of the in and . After about 1300, however, the usual Norwegian pronunciation seems to have been \AHN-byorgh\. [7, 8] We think it likely that Orkney pronunciation in your period was generally similar to Norwegian pronunciation. <{AE}rnbjorg> is, as you said, a different spelling of the same name. Unfortunately, it is a hypothetical or theoretical spelling rather than one taken from a period document. [9] We would not be shocked to find a real example of it, but it does not appear in even the most complete collection of Old Norse names. Because you liked the idea of using the byname 'Orkney-woman', we tried to find other feminine given names used in Orkney in your period. We don't have very good sources for this, but in official Norwegian documents of the period we were able to find a very few names used either in Orkney or in the Shetland Islands: [10] Biorg (1307, Shetlands) Gudrun (1325, Orkney) Katerin (1329, countess of Orkney and Caithness) is a variant spelling of . This name, which was pronounced \BYORGH\, was used in Iceland from the land-taking (c. 900 CE) through the Middle Ages; one instance, from about 1200, is known in Norway. [11, 12] It is probably a reasonable choice throughout your period. is a variant spelling of . (Here <{dh}> stands for the letter edh, which looks like a backwards <6> with a short tick-mark through the upright.) This was one of the commonest feminine names in Iceland and Norway from the 10th century through the Middle Ages, and it was taken to northern Scotland at an early date: the sister of Olaf, jarl of Caithness in the late 10th century, was named . [13, 14 ,15] It was pronounced \GOODH-roon\, where \OO\ is the vowel of and \dh\ stands for the sound of in and (*not* the sound in ). This name is a good choice for your period. , a variant of , is not of Old Norse origin. It first appears in both Iceland and Norway around 1300; in Iceland it remained rare, but in Norway it eventually became quite common. [16, 17] Owing to influence from the Scots it may have entered the Orkney name pool a bit earlier, but we recommend it only for the later part of your period. It was pronounced roughly \kah-t@-REEN\. We found one other feminine name used in Orkney during the Viking period: (spelled in the manuscript source) is the name of a bastard daughter of Jarl Erlendr of Orkney. However, she died in 1098, and no other instance of the name seems to be known. [18, 19] It might be suitable for the very beginning of your period, but we definitely do not recommend it any later than that. It was pronounced \YAHT-vor\. To sum up, is an excellent choice. and <{AE}rnbjorg> are not good choices in just those forms, but as and they are probably quite suitable. We cannot recommend as good historical re-creation. Going beyond the names that you mentioned, we can recommend and . For the later part of your period may be a reasonable choice. Finally, it's possible that was still in use at the very beginning of your period, but there is enough doubt that we cannot really recommend it. Gunnvo,r silfraha/rr, Thora Sharptooth, Arval Benicoeur, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael also contributed to this letter. We apologize for the length of time it has taken and hope that it is nevertheless helpful; if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to write us again. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 9 February 2002 ===== References and Notes: [1] 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. . (Here stands for a-umlaut and for an with a small circle directly above it.) [2] Magnusson, Magnus and Hermann Palsson, trans. Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney (New York: Penguin, 1978); Ch. 67. [3] Watson, William J. The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (London: William Blackwood & Sons Ltd., 1926); p. 294. [4] \RAHNG-nah\ is the modern Norwegian pronunciation of the name, and in general the combination is pronounced \ngn\ in modern Norwegian. That this change goes back to the 14th century can be seen from such spellings of as 1326 and 1345 (Lind, op. cit., s.n. ). We also know that this pronunciation spread to Orkney, where we find the patronymic 'son of Magnus> in 1446 [5]. [5] Black, George F. The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986); s.n. . [6] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [7] Ibid., s.nn. , . [8] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. Norsk personnamnleksikon. 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. . [9] This becomes clear on examination of the source of the information at http://www.vikinganswerlady.org/ONWomansnames.htm. [10] Diplomatarium Norvegicum, Vol. 1, Nr. 109; Vol. 12, Nr. 67; Vol. 2, Nr. 170. http://www.dokpro.uio.no/dipl_norv/diplom_field_eng.html [11] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [12] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. [13] Lind, op. cit., s.n. [14] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. . [15] The name actually appears as , but this is because it is in the accusative case as an object of the preposition 'on behalf of'; as the subject of a sentence, the form in which names are generally cited, it would have been . [16] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [17] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. . [18] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [19] Thomson, William P.L., 'Orkney farm-names: a re-assessment of their chronology', in _Scandinavian Settlement in Northern Britain_, Barbara E. Crawford, ed. (New York: Leicester University Press, 1995); p. 59.