ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2652 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2652 ************************************ 14 May 2003 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a Huguenot man of Basque ancestry born in 1547 in the town of Pau in Bearn. Here is what we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the time it has taken us to complete our report. Bearn, in the south of modern France, is in the region known as the Languedoc, where the dominant language was Provencal (also called Occitan) rather than French. In the southwest, where you want to set your persona, there was undoubtedly a significant Basque-speaking population as well. The use of Basque probably fell off quickly as one moved away from the Pyrenees; and it was probably rarer in the cities than the countryside. French was probably common throughout the region, at least as a language of commerce and government. We don't have many sources for names from late-period Provencal. We have some good sources for earlier periods and we turned up a couple books on names from Bearn itself [1, 2]; so we think we can offer you some useful advice. Neither nor appears to be a particularly good choice for the time & place you want to re-create. Our sources on Bearnese names include neither name. and its pet forms were used in Nice, at the other end of the Provencal world, in the 13th-15th centuries [3] and in the Limousin up to the 13th century [6]. appears a few times in commercial records from 15th-16th century Bordeaux [7], but these names appear to be French rather than Provencal. We have no sources closer to 16th century Bearn, but it does appear generally that the name was rare, at best, in late-period Provencal. is a French name, not Provencal: We've found forms of it late medieval Burgundy and Picardy [4, 5] but not in the Provencal-speaking regions. derived from an earlier Frankish name , and in Latin records it continued to be represented as , , etc. The Latin forms and appear in 13th and 14th century records from Nice [3]; we are not sure what Provencal name this represented, but we doubt it was , which seems to be strictly a northern name. As we explained earlier, double given names (or middle names) did not arise in your region in any significant number until after our period [8]. We therefore recommend you drop the second given name. We have not found any evidence of as a French surname or word. We did find a Bearnese man identified in Latin in 1312 as "Bernard the Basque". A few years later, another was "Garcia the Basque" [9]. might be a good choice for your surname: There is a modern surname derived from the same root, so it is likely that the name existed in the 16th century as well. Other related modern surnames are , , , , and [10]. We have also failed to find any further examples of or as a surname in your period. We did find some surnames from Bearn that mean "the Navarran"; you might want to use one of those if your persona's ancestors originally came from Navarre. We found [12]: Navarrat c.1084 Navarrote 1354 Navarrinote 1493 The surname is probably also a fine choice, though: There is also a modern surname [11]. Given your persona history, the surname seems an odd choice: Your persona never lived in Navarre. Although a nobleman might adopt a surname like to help make his claim to rule that land, we doubt his courtiers would have followed suit. With your persona history, seems to be a better choice. The modern spelling appears in 12th or 13th century sources [13]. In summary, our best advice is that you use a name like . If a man with this name moved to England, we'd expect him to be known there by an anglicization of his name, e.g. something like or . 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 and Anplica dell'Isola. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 14 May 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Le Saulnier de Saint-Jouan, Re/gis, _Le Nom de famille en Be/arn et ses origines_, t.1 (Paris, d'Artrey, 1966-). [2] Berganton, Marcel Francois, _Anthroponymie de la Haute Gascogne centrale: Le de/rive/ du nom individuel au Moyen Age en Be/arn et en Bigorre : usage officiel, suffixes et formations_ (Paris : Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1977). [3] Compan, Andre/, _E/tude d'Anthroponymie Provenc,ale: Les Noms de Personne dans le Comte/ de Nice aux XIIe, XIVe, et XVe Sie\cles_, thesis at the Universite/ de Paris IV, Dec. 1975 (Paris: Librarie Honore Champion, 1976), t.1 pp. 122, 124. [4] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987), s.n. Raoul. [5] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens, Musee de Picardie, 1967), p.19. [6] Perouas, L., B. Barrie\re, B., J. Boutier; J.-C. Peyronnet, & J. Tricard, _Le/onard, Marie, Jean et les Autres: Les Pre/noms en Limousin depuis un Mille/naire (Paris: E/ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984), table 10. [7] Aryanhwy merch Catmael (Sara L. Friedemann) and Talan Gwynek (Brian M. Scott), "Names Found in Commercial Documents from Bordeaux, 1470-1520" (WWW: privately published, 2000). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/bordeaux.html [8] Perouas, for example, says that they were unknown in the Limousin until the 17th century. [9] Berganton, p.188. [10] Dauzat s.nn. Bascou, Basq. [11] Dauzat s.n. Navarre. [12] Berganton, p.246. [13] Chambers, Frank M., _Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971), s.n. Pau.