Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 263

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 263

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/263

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Later research turned up additional information relevant to this report. See the end of the letter for details.

Greetings,

Here's the information we have on "Aife Maeve Lochan," which you'd like to use as a 10th-century Irish name.

We haven't found examples of double given names (the modern "first" and "middle" names) anywhere in Europe until the 14th century. The first examples are found in southern France, and the practice spread slowly outward from there. Although we don't have an exact date for the adoption of double given names in Ireland, it's clearly well after 1000. We recommend that you choose one of your given names and use it.

"Aífe" ("i/" indicates an accented "i") was a common name in Irish legends and stories, and it's found in a list of names from the 12th century. (1) "Maeve" is actually an anglicized form of "Medb," which was a common name in early-period Ireland (the pronunciation is basically the same despite the very different spelling). (2) Either "Aífe" or "Medb" would be appropriate names for your period.

"Family names" in the sense we think of them also didn't exist in 10th-century Ireland. People were identified by names which didn't pass on from generation to generation, and the same person could be identified by several names depending on the context. If you really want to use "Lochán" as an element in both of these names, you could use "Aífe ingen ui Locháin," which means "Aife, daughter of an ua/ Locháin." However, a more likely name for your period would be "Aífe ingen Chian," meaning "Ai/fe, daughter of Cian." This would be the most likely name for your persona.

Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn and Arval d'Espas Nord contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

(1) http://www.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html

(2) O'Corrain & Maguire, "Irish Names."


Correction, Arval, 20 Mar 2003: Aife may not have been used by real people in our period. See the correction to 2028 for details.