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Greetings! You asked about "Sven inn rauði Egilsson" as a name for an 11th century Swedish persona.
The name is quite good. The byname "inn Rauthi" means "the Red" and would probably have been used to distinguish someone with red hair or beard. The name "Balli hinn Rauthi" appears on a Swedish 11th century rune stone (1a). The same person is also referred to once as "Roth-Ballir" (1b). There's also an "Antvit Rautha" in the accusative case from ca 1065-1075 (2). The Swedish translation of "the" at this time (when referring to masculine nouns or names) thus appears to be "hinn".
In Sweden during the 11th century the pronunciation of "Svein" and "Rauthi" changed to "Sven" and "Röthi." Using the old form of one name ("Rauthi") and the new form of the other ("Sven") works, as your persona is from the time of this change (3). Both rune stones that mentioned Balli the Red above used "au" in "Raudhi" but also have other words with the original /ee/ diphthong spelled "e".
The name "Egil" is found in Swedish from this time period (4, 5). One of the sources says it was very rare in Swedish but common in Norwegian and Icelandic.
Your persona would write his name with runes rather than latin letters of course. You can find diagrams of the runic alphabet (or "Futhark") on the world wide web at
http://www.kuai.se/%7Egriffon/runes/futhark/
You want to use "The younger Futhark", not "The Germanic Futhark" or "The medieval Futhark". You can use any of the three versions of the younger Futhark at the web pages. You should be aware that the names "The normal (Danish) Futhark", "The short twig (Norwegian-Swedish) Futhark" and "Staveless (Halsinge) runes" are misleading! What the web page says about regional distribution is very much over-simplified. All three of them were used all over Scandinavia during your time period. And the "short twig" and "staveless" runes were certainly not abnormal as the name "normal Futhark" could indicate.
The writers of the web page also made a typo. The "u" (the second rune) of the normal and Halsinge runes is marked as meaning "i". The web page doesn't make it entirely clear that the younger Futhark was used in Scandinavia only but the Germanic Futhark was used in all the lands were the Germanic tribes lived.
The younger Futhark only had sixteen runes. Several runes had to double for more than one sound of the language. There was no separate rune for "v"; use the u-rune. Originally there was no e-rune either. In the name "Sven" the e-sound was often written with the i-rune. And there were no lower and upper case runes, so "Sven" would be written as "suin".
Runes were never doubled to indicate length of a sound. Thus "hinn" would be written as "hin".
The "th" in "Rauthi" would be written with the rune thorn (the third rune of the Futhark). This rune represents both the voiced "th" (as in "Rauthi" and English "they") and the unvoiced "th" (in "thin"). This sound was never written with a t-rune and an h-rune. For "a" in "Rauthi" you want to use the second, non-nasal, a-rune (without a hook below the "a" at the web page).
The k-rune also doubled for the g-sound, but a "dotted" form of the rune was developed. (This is the same as the g-rune of "The medieval Futhark"). Originally the u-rune was used for "o" as well, but during the 11th century the nasal a-sound dissappeared from the language and the former, nasal, a-rune ("a" with a hook below it at the web page) was used for "o" instead. So you can write "egilson" or "ikilsun" or any other combination of "e"/"i", "g"/"k" and "u"/"o".
To summarize, your name is spelled with the following runes: su(íe)n hin rauði (i/e)(g/k)ils(óu)n. It's harder to talk about correct and incorrect ways of writing your name with Latin letters. For maximum historical accuracy, people should probably spell (and pronounce) it according to the language of their own personae rather than yours. But we want to mention a few points:
Even if you use the i, u and k-runes (when writing the name with runes) you probably want to use "e", "o", "v" and "g" when writing it with Latin letters. The th-sound in Rauthi (and "they") was later written with the character "edh" that looks like a "d" with a curved, crossed ascender or as "dh". Some people might consider "Raudhi" a better spelling then "Rauthi", but this is not based on what your persona would have done. You can double "nn" in "hinn" and "ss" in "Egilsson" if you want (when writing with Latin letters only).
You should be aware that Geirr Bassi Haraldsson's 'The Old Norse Name' and 'Egils Saga Skallagrimsonar' (with author unknown) aren't the best documentation for this name. The first is about the 13th century Icelandic language rather than 11th century Swedish and the second is written in 13th century Icelandic rather than 11th century Swedish. Neither is directly applicable to 11th century Swedish. The College of Arms might accept it as documentation, but 11th century Swedish sources are of course better when re-creating 11th century Swedish names.
Arval d'Espas Nord, Angus Scrymgeour, Talan Gwynek, Hartmann Rogge and myself contributed to this letter.
We hope you will be satisfied by this answer. We will be happy to work with you again if you have any further questions.
In service,
Lindorm Eriksson
Academy of S. Gabriel
Sources:
(1) 'Vastmanlands Runinskrifter granskade och tolkade av Sven B. F. Jansson'. (Sveriges Runinskrifter 13). Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm 1964.
(1a) p. 44-49, inscription 15
(1b) p. 74-75, inscription 24
(2) 'Upplands Runinskrifter granskade och tolkade av Ellias Wessen och Sven B. F. Jansson', vol. 3, p. 90-93, inscription 643. (Sveriges Runinskrifter 8). Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm 1949-51.
(3) Wessen, E.: 'Svensk sprakhistoria', vol. 1 'Ljudlara och ordbojningslara', 8th ed published by 'Almqvist & Wiksell' Stockholm 1968, paragraph 10, p. 32.
(4) Janzen, A.: 'De fornvastnordiska oersonnamnen', p. 40. In 'Personnamn', ed. Janzen, A. (Nordisk Kultur VII). Stockholm, Oslo, Kobenhavn 1947.
(5) 'Smalands Runinskrifter granskade och tolkade av Ragnar Kinander', vol. 1 'Text', p. 301-302, inscription 148. (Sveriges Runinskrifter 4). Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm 1935-61.