ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2504 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2504 ************************************ 1 Jul 2002 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked whether the name or something similar might have been used by a woman of Norwegian descent living near Jorvik (York, England) in the 10th century. You also asked whether Scandinavian names used in the Danelaw were Anglicized to any degree and whether there is any evidence of styles of patronymic byname peculiar to the Danelaw. Unfortunately, we have little in the way of written records from the 10th century Danelaw, and in particular from York; we are not aware of any extensive record of personal names from that area before Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086. Thus, we have to rely on indirect evidence, including what we know of the historical and linguistic background. The main background points are these: * We do know from archaeological evidence that during the 10th century York was a very prosperous commercial centre and that both the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians contributed to this prosperity. We also know that control of the city passed back and forth between the English and the Scandinavians during the 10th century. [1] * We know that a number of Scandinavian names entered the English name stock during this period; in the 11th and 12th centuries some of them are found well outside the Danelaw. [2, 3] * There is clear later evidence of considerable Scandinavian influence on the English spoken in the Danelaw; this influence points to a considerable degree of bilingualism in the Danelaw population, especially among the English. There is much less evidence of influence in the other direction. [4] With that background in mind we'll try to answer your specific questions. is a later form of the Old Norse feminine name , first appearing in the 1300s. (Here stands for a letter represented in modern scholarly texts by an with a hook like a reversed comma hanging from its lower edge.) was one of the most common feminine names in both Norway and Iceland from the 800s on. [5, 6] In Denmark the name was common in the royal lines and the nobility but did not spread to other social classes until the later Middle Ages. [7] It is therefore somewhat surprising that we have been unable to find any evidence that it was used in England. In particular, it was not noted in the major studies of Scandinavian personal names in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk. [8, 9] Evidently the name did not catch on in England, since there is no trace of it in the fairly copious records of the later 11th and 12th centuries. On the other hand, the almost total absence of records from your period makes it likely that a number of the Scandinavian names used in York left no trace in the later English name stock. A name like that was in common use back home in Scandinavia is obviously a good candidate for such a name. Thus, we think that the name would probably not have been out of place in 10th century York and may even have occurred there. It was pronounced roughly \ING-ih-byorgh\, where \gh\ stands for the voiced equivalent of the raspy sound in Scottish and German . (Note that there is no \g\ sound between the first syllable and the second: the is pronounced as in , not as in .) We were able to find two somewhat similar Scandinavian names that are known to have been in use in Norway in your period and are also known to have been used at in England by 1200 or so. The first, which is also the one best represented in our 11th, 12th, and early 13th century sources, is . (Here the slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter, and <{dh}> represents the letter edh or eth, which looks like a backwards <6> with a short tick through the upright.) It is found in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk in this period, and it is known to have been current in Yorkshire in 1066. [10, 11] On the other hand, the first known bearer of the name is Olaf Tryggvason's half-sister, who lived in the late 10th century. [12] It is possible, therefore, that the name was rare in your period. It is also possible, however, that by accident it simply fails to appear in any of the earlier sources. On balance it is probably a slightly better choice than from the standpoint of authenticity, but neither is a bad choice. It was pronounced roughly \ING-ih-reedh(r)\, where \dh\ stands for the sound of in , and \(r)\ stands for a barely pronounced that did not make a separate syllable. The other is , found once in Yorkshire in a 1412 copy of a late 12th century document. This name, which was pronounced roughly \ING-ih-layv\, was common in Norway from the 10th century on. [13] The Old Norse masculine name was definitely known in 10th century England. It appears in English sources as , , , and . In records after about 1000 the is omitted, and the name usually appears as . However, scholars think that the had started to disappear from the spoken form of the name around 900. In your period it probably just indicated that the previous vowel was nasalized and was pronounced something like the vowel in French 'good' or perhaps like that of French 'year'. [14] The whole name was pronounced roughly \AW~-lahf\, where the tilde indicates that the preceding vowel is nasalized. is the standard spelling of the byname meaning 'Olaf's daughter'; it was pronounced roughly \AW~-lahfs DOAT-teer\. Note, however, that in your period the Scandinavians were still almost exclusively using runes, not Latin letters. [15] Runic writing had its own conventions, and the conversion from Latin letters isn't always obvious. If you would like more information, please write again. The question of whether Scandinavian names used in the Danelaw were Anglicized is complicated. They were definitely Anglicized when they appeared in Old English written records. Sometimes, as in the case of for , the Anglicization was purely phonetic: the Anglo-Saxon scribes wrote what they heard. In other cases they 'translated' names by substituting cognate Old English names or name elements; an example from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the replacement of Old Danish with the cognate Old English . [16] There is also good evidence that some of these 'translated' names entered the English name stock in their 'translated' forms. [17] Whether someone whose first language was Scandinavian might have borne such a name is another matter. We can't rule out the possibility, but it's probably safe to say that such a person would have been more likely to use a Scandinavian form of the name. Still, you might find it interesting to know how or might have appeared in an Old English text, and the available information allows us to make some fairly safe guesses. The Old English name element cognate with Old Norse normally appears in Old English names as or , and the cognate of <-bio,rg> is <-burg>. [18] There is no Old English element corresponding to <-ri/{dh}r>, so it would presumably have been written phonetically as <-ri{dh}>. (The final <-r> in the Old Norse element is a grammatical ending that was normally dropped in Old English versions.) The Old English element corresponding to Old Norse <-leif> is found only in masculine names, so we might also expect this element to have been written phonetically, probably without any change. Thus, it's very likely that would have been written , while might have been written either or , and might have been written . The patronymic would probably have become . Finally, we have no direct evidence of the forms taken by patronymic bynames in the Danelaw. Since, however, the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians used grammatically similar patronymic constructions, we doubt that there was any occasion for the development of variants peculiar to the Danelaw. Juliana de Luna, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been useful and that you will write again if you have any further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 2 July 2002 ===== References and Notes: [1] Hall, Richard. The Viking Dig: The Excavations at York (London: The Bodley Head, 1984), especially Chapters 5 and 6. [2] von Feilitzen, Olof. The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1937); p. 25. [3] Stacy, N.E., ed. Surveys of the Estates of Glastonbury Abbey c. 1135-1201 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). These estates were in the southwest of England, mostly in Somerset, and the extensive survey of 1189 shows many tenants with Scandinavian names. For example, several women bore forms of the Scandinavian name (index s.nn. , ). [4] Kastovsky, Dieter. 'Semantics and Vocabulary', in The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. 1, Richard M. Hogg, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Section 5.2.3, especially 5.2.3.3.1, with summary of conclusions on p. 330. [5] Lind, E.H. Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931); s.n. . (Here stands for a-umlaut, and stands for an with a small circle directly above it.) [6] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. Norsk personnamnleksikon. 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. . (Here stands for an with a slash through it, one of the three extra letters of the modern Norwegian alphabet.) [7] Knudsen, Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby. Danmarks Gamle Personnavne. Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48); s.n. . [8] Fellows Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (Copenhagen: 1968). [9] Insley, John. Scandinavian personal names in Norfolk : a survey based on medieval records and place-names (Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; Stockholm : Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994). [10] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 151. [11] Insley, op. cit., s.n. . [12] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [13] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 150. [14] Ibid., pp. CIII-CIV. [15] Gordon, E.V. Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957); pp. lxi-lxiii. [16] Gillian Fellows-Jensen. 'Danish place-names and personal names in England. The influence of Cnut?', in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, Alexander R. Rumble, ed. (London: Leicester University Press, 1994); p.134. [17] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 135. For example, the bishop of Dorchester and archbishop of York named who died in 971 must have considered himself an Englishman, but his name is an Old English 'translation' of Old Norse . An Englishman who was appointed bishop of Selsey in 1038 was named , an OE version of ON , and a man who was in charge of the defense of East Anglia and died fighting the Danes in 1016 was named , a similar 'translation' of ON . [18] Boehler, Maria. Die altenglischen Frauennamen (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967 [1930]); p. 94.