ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2478 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2478 ************************************ From: Lisa and Ken Theriot 22 Mar 2002 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked if is an appropriate name for a late 16th century Dutch man, the son of a Dutch mother and a Scottish father. Here is the information we have found. As we mentioned in earlier correspondence, although it is very common in the Society to try to indicate mixed parentage in one's name, it simply wasn't done in period. In the rare cases when two people from different countries married, their children were named according to the naming practices of the country where they lived. If they moved from one country to another, they would either retain their original names or use local equivalents. We have found no examples of names mixing Scottish and Dutch elements; you therefore have two options, an entirely Scottish name or an entirely Dutch name. We will examine the possibilities in both cultures. is an Anglicized form of a name which was originally Gaelic [1]. In the 16th century, the language of the towns of Scotland was not Gaelic, but Scots, a language very close to English; a native of a 16th century Scottish seaport would have been a Scots speaker. Fortunately, was one of the Gaelic names which was incorporated into Scots-language naming; we find several Lowland (Scots-speaking) men by this name in the 16th century, spelled , , and [2]. By the 16th century, virtually all surnames in Lowland Scotland were inherited. Had you been named for your Scottish father, you would likely also have had his surname. The article referenced at [2] contains several lists of surnames, any of the surnames listed would be entirely appropriate for you. We did not find anything like . We find no examples of a name sounding like anywhere in 16th century Scotland. This Dutch name literally means 'the Frisian' and simply identifies the named person as being from that particular area of the Low Countries. It is likely that a 16th century Scottish person wouldn't know one type of Dutchman from another, so you might be interested in a name used to describe people as Dutch. We find the following bynames recorded in 16th century Scotland [3, 4]: Duche Duchman Ducheman Flemen Flemyn Flemyne Fleming Flemyng Flemming Most of these examples come from documents which describe owners and captains of Dutch ships. Some, however, are examples of native Scotsmen. Dutch immigrants began settling in Scotland in the 12th century, so by the 16th century was an inherited Scottish name as well as a literal descriptive for a Dutch person. Our earliest examples of names beginning in , however, are 16th century; we believe that these examples are native Dutch people rather than Scottish people. We would not be surprised to find a name like or recorded in 16th century Lowland Scotland, though could be a Scottish man with no connection to the Low Countries except distant ancestry [5]. We have found no examples of the name in the Low Countries, so we can't say how it might have been adapted into Dutch. The closest-sounding Dutch name we were able to find was , recorded in your period in Bruges; the same collection of names has a 16th century spelling of [6]. is therefore a fine 16th century Dutch name. It was pronounced roughly \MAee-kin d@ FREE-z@\, where \Aee\ represents a diphthong with the \A\ pronounced like the in , and \@\ represents the sound of in and . We have not found a 16th century example of your spelling , and we do not know whether it is appropriate for your period. The Dutch did not begin to use inherited surnames until well after your period. In the 16th century, surnames were used literally: The name would have been understood to mean "Maykin the Frisian". We 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, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Avraham haRofeh, Blaise de Cormeilles, Dietmar von Straubing, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Falk vom Weserbogen, Julie Stampnitzky, Mari neyn Brian, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 21 March 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Ma/el Coluim. [2] Krossa, Sharon L. (Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte), "Early 16th Century Scottish Lowland Names" (WWW: Privately published, 2001). http://www.MedievalScotland.org/scotnames/lowland16/ [3] Krossa, Sharon L., unpublished research on 16th century Aberdeen records. [4] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Duche, Fleming. [5] Way of Plean, George, and Romilly Squire, _Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia_, (Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994), p. 388 s.n. Fleming. They include the entry: "Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld was created Earl of Wigton in 1342". Obviously then, is a fine name for a Scottish man (note the spellings here of both and have been modernized). [6] Luana de Grood, "Flemish Names from Bruges, 1400-1600", (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/bruges/