ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2572 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2572 ************************************ 28 May 2002 From: Sara L Friedemann Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an appropriate surname for a Swedish woman living between 1450 and 1600. You also asked about the given name . Your choice of given name is excellent; the form is found in 1381, 1396, 1434, and 1481. There was no single standard spelling, though; other spellings recorded in your period include: [1] Asa 1408, 1409, 1423, 1444 Asaa 1443 Osa 1406, 1522 We have not any example, medieval or modern, of as a Scandinavian surname. From the pronunciation you gave us, we suspect that the name is actually or (where represents an with a slash through it). This is a modern Danish surname, but we haven't found evidence of it in modern Sweden. [3,4] The most similar surname that we could find in medieval records is the 15th-century Danish , meaning perhaps "Rhein-man." [2] This would not be the best surname for a Swedish woman, since it indicates German origin. If you would like information on Swedish surname practices, we recommend one of our past reports: Academy of S. Gabriel report #2296 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2296 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 Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Lindorm Eriksson, and Catriona inghean ui Bhraonain. For the Academy, ~Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 28May02 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Friedemann, Sara L., "Swedish Feminine Given Names from SMP" (WWW: privately published, 2001) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/smp/ [2] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). s.n. Rinman [3] Statistiska Centralbyrån (The Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics) http://www.scb.se/statistik/be0101/BE0101NamnSok.asp. This is a searchable database of Swedish people. We found no records for anyone with any form of . [4] We found a number of Danish web pages listing people with this surname: http://www.solroedfc.dk/webu21.htm http://frederiksborg.af.dk/reg_frederiksborg/rar/rar_medlemmer.htm http://www.lederne.dk/Lokalafdelinger/afd_103/Om_afdeling_103/kvindelige_led ere_populaere_i_.html