ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2464 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2464 ************************************ 24 Apr 2002 From: Raquel Buenaventura Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You wrote to us asking if the name would be a good recreation of a Swedish name used before 1600 AD., and if so, in what time during that period it would have been used. We have found no indication that was used that early; at that time the usual forms of the name were and (where stands for o-umlaut). These were pronounced roughly \TU"N-yus\ and \TO"N-yus\, where \U"\ stands for the sound of u-umlaut in German , and \O"\ stands for the sound of o-umlaut in German . [1, 2, 3] Through the end of our period, Swedish surnames were literal, i.e. the son of would have been called , not . The same applied to other kinds of surnames. So a 16th century man in Sweden would have been called "the Pole" only if he was an immigrant from Poland or perhaps the son or grandson of an immigrant. We haven't found an example of in period Sweden, and do not have information on how many Polish immigrants to Sweden there actually were before 1600, but we have found a name with the same meaning in 15th century Denmark: or . [2] This name is pronounced \POE-l@-mahn\. Although we have no evidence of being used in Sweden, it would not be surprising. We do have a Swedish example of a byname that means "German": 1495 [1]. To sum up, we cannot find evidence that would be a good recreation of a pre-1600 Swedish name, and do not recommend that you use it. However, or is a plausible name for a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Swedish man. I hope that this letter has been helpful. Please do not hesitate to write again if any part of it was unclear, or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Hartmann Rogge, Lindorm Eriksson, Ursula Georges and Aryanhwy merch Catmael. For the Academy, Raquel Buenaventura April 21, 2002 ____________________________________________ [1] _Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn_, Vol. 1 (Uppsala: 1967), ha"fte 1 s.n. Antonius. [2] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). s.nn. Antonius, Polman. [3] The vowel represented by \O"\ is roughly what you get if you try to say \AY\ (as in ) with your lips rounded and pursed. The vowel represented by \U"\ is roughly what you get if you try to say \EE\ (as in ) with your lips rounded and pursed.