ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2569
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2569
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30 May 2002
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked whether <Guillaume d'Artois> is an appropriate name for a man
from Rouen in Normandy who lived between 950 and 1200.  Here is what we
have found.

<Guillaume> is the standard modern French form of a name that was fairly
common in your period, but this spelling probably isn't appropriate to the
time and region you want to re-create.  We've found these examples in times
and places where similar dialects were spoken [1]:

  Willihelm (Tours)
  Willehelmus (north of Trier, near the Belgian border; also Mainz a.968)
  Wilhelmus (near Paris)
  Wilelmus (near Paris)
  Willelmus (Paris a.918; also central France a.1095)
  Guillelmus (Reims, a.1075; also southern Normandy a.1083)

In late 13th century records from Artois, the name appears as <Willelmus>,
<Willaume>, <Willermus>, <Willem>, among other spellings [2].  Many of the
spellings from both these sources are Latinized, preserving old forms that
no longer reflected the current pronunciation of the name.  We believe that
in your period, the spelling that best reflected the contemporary
pronunciation of the name was <Willaume>, pronounced \weel-yowm\, where
\ow\ stands for the vowel in <how> [6].  However, your name may well still
have been written in a Latinized form as <Willelmus>.

<Artois> is a later-period name for the region that was called <Arteis> in
Old French [3].  That form is the basis for the 13th century name <Gobert
l'Artesien>, recorded in Picardy [4] and for the modern surnames<Artisien>
[5].  The adjectival form of a regional name was often used as a surname.
<Willaume l'Artesien> is an excellent choice for your period.  <Willaume
d'Arteis> is also a fine choice, but somewhat less typical.

Surnames based on the names of large regions were most commonly used for
people who had moved elsewhere -- in Arteis itself, after all, a name like
<l'Artesien> would do little to distinguish a man from his neighbors.  If
you want a name suitable for someone living in Arteis, then some other
surname would be more typical.  You might choose the name of a small town
or village in Arteis, for example.


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 Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  30 May 2002


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References

[1] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de
l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972), I:225a.

[2] Bougard, Pierre, and Maurits Gysseling, _L'Impot Royal en Artois
(1295-1302): Ro^les du 100e et du 50e pre/sente/s et publie/s avec une
table anthroponymique, Me/moires de la Commission Royale de Toponymie et de
Dialectologie #13 (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste, B.P. 41, 1970),
s.n. Willaume. 

[3] Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 1986),
s.v. artesian.

[4] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de
personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens,
Musee de Picardie, 1967), pp.389-90.

[5] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de
Famille_ (Librairie Acade/mique Perrin, 1997), s.n. Arte/sien.

[6] A more precise pronuncation is \wee-l~owm\, where \l~\ represents the
sound of <ll> in French words like <million>.