ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2584 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2584 ************************************ 27 Dec 2002 From: Raquel Buenaventura Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You wrote to us asking whether would be a good recreation of a woman's name from sixteenth-century Spain. Here's what we've found out: , as a woman's given name, does not appear in any of our sources for Spain before 1600. We have, however, found two examples of in a Portuguese source from 1565. [1] It is possible that this name might also have been used in Spain, although it seems to be somewhat rare, and might have been used only in Portugal. We do not have an example of the name spelled , but we think it is a reasonable alternative: The common Castilian word "hope" was spelled with a 'z' 41% of the time by 16th century writers [2]; the two letters represented the same sound in 16th century Castilian. Surnames based on place names, like , were very common in your culture. We haven't actually found someone named , but it's still a fine choice. The name of the city was spelled at the end of the 15th century [3], so you may want to consider using that spelling. In conclusion, we have not found used outside of Portugal, but believe it is a possible name for a Spanish woman living in the sixteenth century. is an excellent surname for your time and place. I hope that this letter has been helpful. Please do not hesitate to write again if any part of it was unclear, or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Maridonna Benvenuti, Galiana de Baiona, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, Arval Benicoeur, Juliana de Luna, Julie Stampnitzky, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Falk vom Weserbogen, Alan Fairfax, Elizabeth Anne Roth, Pedro de Alcazar, Leonor Martin and Laurensa de Chambord. For the Academy, Raquel Buenaventura December 26, 2002 __________________________________ [1] Friedemann, Sara L. "Portuguese Names from Lisbon, 1565" (WWW: Self-published, 2002) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/lisbon1565.html [2] Real Academia Espan~ola - Corpus Diacro/nico del Espan~ol (CORDE), http://corpus.rae.es/cordenet.html, research by Leonor Martin. [3] Montalvo, Antonio Serrano. _La Poblacio/n de Arago/n segu/n el Fogaje de 1495_. 2 vols. (Zaragoza: Institucio/n Fernando el Cato/lico; Gobierno de Aragon; Instituto Aragone/s de Estadi/stic, 1995). p.1