ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2772 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2772 ************************************ 16 Apr 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You wrote to us asking if or would be an appropriate name for a woman living in an Arabic-speaking area during the Middle Ages. Here is the information we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time it has taken us to complete this report. We hope that this information is still useful to you. , which is more accurately transcribed from Arabic to Roman letters as (8), is a modern Arabic woman's given name. We have not been able to find solid evidence of its having been used before the twentieth century. We have been able to locate a few medieval Arabic women's names which sound somewhat similar. Sama 8th C - 12th C (1) Samra 11th C - 13th C (2) Semeeah undated, but medieval (3) Because our sources use different and inconsistent systems for transcribing Arabic into Roman letters, it is not clear what the underlying Arabic names are in these cases. Our best guesses are that represents the name we would transcribe as (the period at the end representing a dot which would appear under the H), that is a name that we would transcribe as , and that represents a name we would transcribe as . 'the radiant', which we would transcribe as , is a byname traditionally given to Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed. It was also the byname of a woman in 10th century Cordoba (4), and we found an Arabic concubine in Spain with this byname. (9) We believe it is a reasonable byname to be used by a medieval Arabic speaking woman, but we should warn you that in the past the SCA College of Arms has been unwilling to register this, believing it to be unique to Fatima. (5) Please note that in front of certain letters, the sound of the consonant in "the" changes. In particular, before a 'Z' it is pronounced \z\; so the name is probably best transcribed as . or appears in a few sources as a medieval byname. (3,6) It may originally have been a tribal name from southern Arabia. The feminine form is , which is used by a modern website to refer to a seventh-century woman. (7) To sum up, we have not been able to find in use as a woman's name during the period in which you're interested. However, any of the somewhat similar-sounding given names from that period that we listed above would be appropriate, as would the bynames and . I hope the information in this letter has been useful. Please write to us again if any part of it is unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Ursula filia Georgii, Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Maridonna Benvenuti, Juliana de Luna, Juetta Copin, and Safya al-Mughanniiyah bint Ziyad al-Misri. For the Academy, Raquel filla d'En Astruch & Arianuia filia Catmaili 16 April 2004 -- (1) Juliana de Luna, "Andalusian Names: Arabs in Spain" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 2001). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/andalusia/ (2) Juliana de Luna, "Jewish Women's Names In An Arab Context: Names >From the Cairo Geniza", (WWW: 2001) http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/geniza.html (3) Da'ud ibn Auda, "A List of Arabic Women's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996) http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/arabicwomen.html (4) author not cited, "Heritage Sites In Europe: Cordoba, Cordoba Province, Andalucia" (WWW, accessed 1/11/04), http://www.heritagesites.eu.com/spain/cordoba.htm (5) Laurel Sovereign of Arms' Letter of Acceptances and Returns, February 2002, Returns, Meridies, Zubaydah az-Zahra. http://sca.org/heraldry/loar/2002/02/02-02lar.html (6) School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, "Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah Al-Kindi" (WWW, accessed 1/11/04), http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Kindi.html (7) Bois, Danuta, "Distinguished Women of Past and Present: Khawlah Bint al-Kindiyyah", (WWW, 1997) http://www.distinguishedwomen.com (8) We use a doubled vowel to indicate a long vowel. While this transcription standard is used in many sources, the more typical scholarly transcription uses a single vowel with a macron (long mark) over it. (9) Manuela Mari/n _Mujeres en al-A/ndalus_ (_Estudios Onoma/sticos- Biogra/ficos de al-Andalus, No. 11_). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cienti/ficas, Madrid, 2000. pp. 79-80