ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2454
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2454
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16 Feb 2002
From: Ursula Whitcher 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether a form of your modern name, <Claus Kolbe Berntsen>, would 
be appropriate for a man living in Denmark around 1300 AD.  Here is what we 
have found.

<Claus> is a diminutive form of the name <Nicholas>.  This form developed
in Germany, and spread from Germany to Denmark.  The first people named
<Claus> 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 Theutonicus>, "Claus the German", in 1296.  Later in the
fourteenth century, Danish men began to use the name <Claus>.  We found the
spellings <Claus>, <Claws>, and <Clawes> in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.  We believe that throughout this period <Claus> and <Claws> were
pronounced \KLOWS\, where \OW\ sounds like the <ow> in <now>.  <Clawes> was
pronounced \KLOW-@s\, where '@' represents the sound of <a> in <about> and
<soda>.  This sound is called schwa.  (Our pronunciation guides are based
on General American English and correspond to modern standard German
pronunciations of <Klaus> and <Klaues>, respectively.) [1]

<Kolbe> 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 <Kolbe> in Germany in 
your period, including a German man named <Hans Kolbe> in 1388. [6]

<Bernt> is a form of the name <Bernhard> or <Bernard> that was used in the
fifteenth century.  We found a different form of the name <Bernhard>,
<B{ae}rind>, 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 <Bernhard> in the fifteenth century, including
<Bernd>, <Bern>, <Bernt>, and <Berent>.  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 <Berendesson> or <Bernson> circa 1420; we found the form <Berntson> in
1431.  We believe that <Berendesson> was pronounced \BAIR-@n-des-sohn\,
where \oh\ sounds like the vowel in <more>.  <Berntson> was probably
pronounced \BAIRNT-sohn\.  Both pronunciations were very similar to the
modern Swedish or German pronunciations. [3]

Putting things together, we find that <Claus Berntson> or <Clawes Berntson>
is a fine name for a fifteenth-century Danish man.  <Claus Berntson> 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 <Claus Berntson> could have been recorded in
Latin as <Claus Bernardi>.  (The Latin form of <Bernhard> is <Bernardus>.
In this name, <Bernardus> changes to <Bernardi> because of a requirement of
Latin grammar, which is analogous to adding the <'s> in the English phrase
<John's son>.) [4] <Claus Kolbe> 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 <Claus Kolbe>; however, since we have found
no evidence that <Kolbe> 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 <Claus Berntson>. [5]  To 
avoid this problem, you might consider using a different form of <Bernhard> 
as a patronymic.  For example, <Claus Berendesson> is a fine name for a 
fifteenth-century Dane.  The Latin version of this name, <Claus Bernardi>, 
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

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References:

[1]  Gunnar Knudsen, Marius Kristiansen, and Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle
Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48) s.n. <Klawes>

[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. <Bernhard>.  The patronymics we've cited from this source 
are abbreviated, e.g. <Berns:> rather than <Bernson>. The abbreviation <s:> 
could stand for <son>, <so|n> (with a slashed 'o'), <sen>, 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. <Bernhard> has <Bernardo Bartholomei> in 1353 and 
<Bernardo Hennekini> 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. <Kolbe>.