ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2783 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2783 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 28 Jun 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked our help choosing a name appropriate for a woman of mixed Saxon and Norse ancestry living in Northumberland around 1100. You originally asked about given names beginning with that contain a \th\ sound but not an \s\ sound; and in a followup you asked about several specific names. You also asked about a surname meaning "shortsighted". Here is what we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the time it has taken to complete this report. We hope this information is still useful. We've found a couple given names that might fit your original request. is an Old English woman's given name that was probably pronounced roughly \TCHEL-thrith\ in northern England c.1100 [1]. The symbol {th} represents the letter thorn, written like a 'p' with the vertical stroke extending upward. Another possibility is the Old English , which was used in Durham, in the north of England, as late as the mid-11th century [2]. The pronunciation in this region was probably roughly \KIN-uh-boorkh\. \kh\ here represents the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . In your followup, you asked about or , , , and . is an English spelling of the Old Norse name , recorded in early Viking Norway and Iceland [3]. The slash represents an acute accent mark over the preceding letter. A 12th century place name in Yorkshire, or , demonstrates that the name was carried to Britain by Norwegian settlers [4]. Although Scandinavian settlement was less common in Northumberland than Yorkshire, this name is still a reasonable choice for your persona. It would probably have been written in the English of your period, and pronounced just like the word . is a Danish name, originally a short form of feminine names like <{TH}orvarr>, <{TH}orfri{dh}r>, etc. ({dh} represents the letter edh, written like a backward '6' with a crossbar on the upper limb.) This short form was rare in England: We located only a single example, in Norfolk in the mid 11th century [5, 6]. Because of its rarity, we can't recommend as the best choice. It was pronounced roughly \TOA-vuh\, where \OA\ represents the vowel in . The Old English name or was used much earlier than your period, but appears to have dropped out of use: The only examples we've found were recorded in the late 7th and 8th centuries [7]. If the name had survived to the late 11th century, it would have evolved into a form like ; but without evidence of that name in your period, we recommend you stick with one of the better-supported names. Similarly, the only example we can find of the Old English name is from the late 6th century [8]. It is therefore not appropriate for your period. We found no 11th-12th century English byname meaning "shortsighted", as such. We found some names with similar meanings, though not in Northumberland specifically. This is significant because there were geographical trends in the use of bynames, so a name recorded in one part of 11th century England might not have been in use elsewhere. Unfortunately, we have very little information about these patterns beyond the specific examples that survive, so we can't really say whether a particular name from London, for example, was also in use in your region. The Middle English or "bleary-eyed" implies imperfect vision, and it gave rise to several bynames [9]: Richard Blere Northamptonshire, 1181 Alice Bleregh London, 1276 (also recorded as "blear eye") Walter le Bler Gloucestershire, 1316 John Blary Somerset, 1327 Simon Bleri Lincolnshire, 1375 These examples are widely distributed, so it is relatively safe to assume that it was also available in Northumberland. The word was used before 1230 in the phrase "his dim eyes" [10]. It is not implausible that the word was used in this sense in your period, in which case one could construct a byname , pronounced \DIM-muh\, or "dim-eye", \DIM-ay-uh\, with a secondary stress on \ay\. The byname was in use by 1289, though perhaps not with this meaning [11]. (The symbol '3' here stands for the Middle English letter yogh, which was written much like the numeral. It is pronounced here just as you'd pronounced the letter 'y'. You can find a picture of a yogh at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh In summary, a name like "Lif Blear-eye" or "Lif Dim-eye" is a fairly good choice for late 11th century Northumberland. 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, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Maridonna Benvenuti, Juliana de Luna, and Ursula Georges. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 28 Jun 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Marieke van de Dal, "Anglo-Saxon Women's Names from Royal Charters" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001). The name appears in this source as , recorded in the 10th or 11th century; the final is an Old English grammatical ending. Spelling in Old English varied widely; the spelling we've given in the text follows the modern scholarly standard. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/marieke/anglosaxonfem/ [2] Boehler, Maria, _Die altenglischen Frauenamen_ (Nendlem, Liechtenstein: Krauss Reprint, 1967 [1930]), pp.47-8. [3] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931), s.n. Hli/f. [4] Fellows Jensen, Gillian, _Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_ (Copenhagen: 1968), s.n. Li/f. [5] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48), s.n. Tova. [6] Insley, John, _Scandinavian personal names in Norfolk : a survey based on medieval records and place-names_ (Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; Stockholm : Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994), s.n. To/fa. [7] Boehler p.139. [8] Boehler p.206. [9] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.nn. Blear, Bleary. They also list a 10th century Old English example <{AE}lfstanes {dh}ys Blerian>, a genitive-case form that might actually be a misreading of a name that meant "the bald". [10] _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), s.v. dim. [11] Reaney & Wilson s.n. Dimm. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Addendum, Arval, 27 Aug 2004: Another possible byname meaning "short-sighted" is . The OED cites it in 1297 meaning "totally blind", but in the 1380s and later meaning "dim-eyed; near-sighted; far-sighted". We don't have an example of it as a surname, but it might be plausible.