ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2454 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2454 ************************************ 16 Feb 2002 From: Ursula Whitcher Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether a form of your modern name, , would be appropriate for a man living in Denmark around 1300 AD. Here is what we have found. is a diminutive form of the name . This form developed in Germany, and spread from Germany to Denmark. The first people named in Danish records are Germans living circa 1300 AD. One of the earliest examples that we found was a man whose name was recorded in Latin as , "Claus the German", in 1296. Later in the fourteenth century, Danish men began to use the name . We found the spellings , , and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. We believe that throughout this period and were pronounced \KLOWS\, where \OW\ sounds like the in . was pronounced \KLOW-@s\, where '@' represents the sound of in and . This sound is called schwa. (Our pronunciation guides are based on General American English and correspond to modern standard German pronunciations of and , respectively.) [1] is a German surname that derives from the German word for "club". [2] We found no evidence that this name was used in Denmark during your period. However, we found many different forms of in Germany in your period, including a German man named in 1388. [6] is a form of the name or that was used in the fifteenth century. We found a different form of the name , , in Denmark in 1335. (The symbol {ae} represents the letter ash or aesc, which looks like an 'a' and an 'e' stuck together.) We found many more Danish forms of in the fifteenth century, including , , , and . We also found several people using patronymic forms of these names. (Patronymics are surnames which identify men as their father's sons.) Among the earliest examples are a man known as or circa 1420; we found the form in 1431. We believe that was pronounced \BAIR-@n-des-sohn\, where \oh\ sounds like the vowel in . was probably pronounced \BAIRNT-sohn\. Both pronunciations were very similar to the modern Swedish or German pronunciations. [3] Putting things together, we find that or is a fine name for a fifteenth-century Danish man. is also plausible as a late fourteenth-century name; however, we do not believe that it would have been used by a Danish man as early as 1300 AD. In either century, the name could have been recorded in Latin as . (The Latin form of is . In this name, changes to because of a requirement of Latin grammar, which is analogous to adding the <'s> in the English phrase .) [4] is a fine name for a man living in Germany during the fourteenth century. It's possible that a German man living in Denmark could have been named ; however, since we have found no evidence that was used in Denmark during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we cannot recommend this name as the best recreation. If your goal is to register your name with the Society of Creative Anachronism, you may have a problem: the College of Arms will not permit you to register a name that is identical or nearly identical to your modern name. Thus, you might not be able to register . [5] To avoid this problem, you might consider using a different form of as a patronymic. For example, is a fine name for a fifteenth-century Dane. The Latin version of this name, , would also be appropriate. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, Hartmann Rogge, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Zenobia Naphtali, Avraham haRofeh, and Lindorm Eriksson. For the Academy, Ursula Georges 16 Feb. 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- References: [1] Gunnar Knudsen, Marius Kristiansen, and Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48) s.n. [2] Josef Karlmann Brechenmacher, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960) s.n. Kolbe. [3] Knudsen s.n. . The patronymics we've cited from this source are abbreviated, e.g. rather than . The abbreviation could stand for , (with a slashed 'o'), , or some other form; there's no way to know. We've chosen <-son>, which was one of the options throughout the period covered by the data we've used here; we believe it is the most likely form. [4] Knudsen s.n. has in 1353 and in 1405. (Names end in <-o> because they are in the dative or ablative case.) [5] _Administrative Handbook of the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism_ (WWW: SCA Inc., 1996) http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/admin.html, III.A.9. [6] Ernst Schwarz, _Deutsche Namenforschung. I: Ruf- und Familiennamen_ (Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1949) s.n. .