ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2508 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2508 ************************************ 25 Apr 2002 From: Sara L Friedemann Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an appropriate name for a German man living between 1050 and 1300; and you said that you'd picked because of its relation to your modern name, . Here is the information we have found. is a very early form of the name that eventually became in modern English. By your period in Germany, the name had already lost the . An example is 1278, recorded in Rostock, in the northern part of Germany [4]. Examples from the Upper Rhine in southwestern Germany and Switzerland include 1269, 1279; c.1270, 1298; 1274; 1300. The <-us> in a couple of the examples is a Latin grammatical ending. The vernacular (or spoken) forms of these names were probably and . is a patronymic form of , a form of found in Low German, i.e. the dialects of German spoken in the north and northwest. [2] A patronymic byname is one that indicates the name of the bearer's father. Our earliest examples of this shortened form are 1393 and as a patronymic in 1399. [3] Without evidence that these short forms were used as early as your period, we recommend that you do not use or any other shortened form of as your surname. Danzig is the modern German name of a city that was known in Polish as (the slash represents an accent over the previous letter). We find one example of a man recorded as "John of Danzig" in 1266 [2]. This is a partially Latinized form; in the Low German vernacular, his byname was probably . Danzig is modernly in Poland near the German border. It was also Slavic for the first century-and-a-half of your period, but was predominantly German-speaking in the 13th century. Since we have found in northern Germany in the 13th century as well, is a plausible name for that period. We didn't find for another 100 years, so we can't recommend that name for your period at all. We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter were provided by Talan Gwynek, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, ~Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 25Apr02 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Socin, Adolf, _Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch. Nach oberrheinischen Quellen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts_ (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1903; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966). pp. 32, 158, 630 [2] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960). s.nn. Ahrend(t), Arend(t), Arnd(t), Danzig(er) [3] Zoder, R., _Familiennamen in Ostfalen_. 2 vols. (Hildesheim: 1968). pp. 28, 44 [4] Bahlow, Hans, _Deutsches Namenlexikon : Familien- und Vornamen nach Ursprung und Sinn erklaert_ (Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985, 1990). s.n. Reimuth