ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2625 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2625 ************************************ 26 Apr 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether we could suggest an authentic 11th century Scottish name for a woman living in an area of mixed Gaelic & Norse culture, who was named and whose parents were aka and aka . The slash indicates an acute accent mark over the preceding letter and the quotation mark indicates an umlaut (two dots) over that letter. The symbol {dh} represents the letter edh, written as a backward '6' with a crossbar on the upper limb. You also expressed interest in a byname that means "daughter of the Viking". Here is what we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time it has taken to reply to your question. The names you've chosen for your parents are excellent [1, 2]. Your Gaelic grammar isn't quite right: The name after or has to be in the possessive (genitive) form; and in some cases the pronunciation of the initial consonant of a name after softens, and this is indicated by adding an after that letter. So your father's name in Gaelic is and your mother's is . In your period, these names were pronounced \RAGH-n@l mahk DOON-gh@-l~@\ and \AYTH-n~@ EEN-y@n KHEL-ahn~\. \KH\ stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word , and \GH\ for the voiced version of that sound. \@\ represents the sound of the in or , \l~\ the sound of in French or in Italian , and \n~\ the sound of the in French or Italian . It is correct to equate Gaelic with Old Norse , but the character o-umlaut was a modern innovation and isn't the best choice here. Modern scholars represent this letter as , an with a reverse-comma-shaped hook hanging from the bottom. is a fine choice. It was used by a Gaelic woman in your period, the daughter of Somerled, Lord of Isles, though we do not have a Gaelic spelling of her name. The spelling was used for several 13th century women, and this spelling is probably appropriate for your period as well [3]. It could also have been written . It was pronounced \BETH-oak\ in your period. We have not found a Norse rendering of , so we can only speculate how it might have been adapted to that language. There is a name that appears in an early Norse text as a rendering of an unknown Irish name, perhaps one that ended <-o/c>. If we assume that's correct, then we can guess at a 13th century Norse adaptation or . Earlier, it would more likely have been oc>, since the letter edh wasn't yet in general use. The symbol {th} represents the Norse letter thorn, written like a 'b' with the vertical stroke extended down as far as it goes up. The Norse used the runic alphabet in your period, so our Roman-alphabet spelling wouldn't have been used in the 11th century. Our spellings of Norse names represent them as accurately as possibly in their normalized forms. Betho/c daughter of Ragnall mac Du/ngail would most often have been known as , pronounced \BETH-oak EEN-y@n RAGH-nahl~\. In Norse, her name might have been , \BEDH-ohk ROHGHN-vahldz DOAT-teer\. \OH\ represents the vowel sound in and \DH\ stands for the sound of the in . There were several Gaelic words that were used to describe Vikings in one way or another; we have found one of these used as part of a personal name recorded in a late 12th century Irish annal: "John the Norseman". This man came form the Orkney Islands [4]. If your father were known as , then you could have been identified as "Betho/c daughter of Ragnall the Norseman". The genitive form was pronounced \LOHKH-l@n-d@ch\. \ch\ here stands for the hissy sound in the German word . 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 Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Galiana de Baiona, Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, Mari neyn Brian, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, and Juan del Escobar. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 26 Apr 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] All the elements of these two names appear in our reports 1667 and 2401: http://www.s-gabriel.org/1667 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2401 [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Ragnall. [3] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Beathag. [4] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals: Masculine Descriptive Bynames" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001), s.n. Lochlandach. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/DescriptiveBynames