ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2803 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2803 ************************************ 11 Jan 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for an Irish woman living around 664 near Cork, and if should be spelled . You also wanted to know if would be appropriate for an Irish woman living circa 1000 near Munster. In this letter, we are using the slash to represent an acute accent over the previous letter. Lastly, you wanted to know if "Azure, a horse's head couped within a bordure Or" would be an appropriate badge. Here is the information we have found. The masculine and feminine given name was used rarely but occasionally in early medieval Ireland. We have found records of both a man and woman of this name who lived in the 8th century [1,2]. The name was pronounced \AY-r@-nahkh\, where \@\ represents the sound of the in or ; and \kh\ stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . We find the masculine name in 862, 907, and 913. [4] The standard patronymic byname formed from this name for this period is . The standard clan style byname based on , for a woman, is . We find the masculine form, , recorded in the late 11th century. [5] 'E/rennach daughter of Ruarcc' is a fine name for an 8th or 9th century woman; however, without evidence that either name was used earlier or later, we cannot recommend this for a 7th or 11th century woman. We do not recommend that you use the clan byname, without evidence that it was in use before the 11th century. We have found only two examples of the descriptive byname 'fast horse'. It is found describing a man in an early-medieval Irish genealogy, and a few generations later his great-great-great-grandson is also known by this byname. [3,6] These early genealogies are not very good guides to Irish naming practices, because many of the people mentioned are legendary or mythological, and we have no way to know if these men were real people or not. Since these are the only examples that we have found of , we cannot recommend this as a good choice for your byname. We have no sources for pre-heraldic Gaelic insignia, and so we cannot say whether or your badge design is authentic. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn Brian, Arval Benicoeur, and Laurensa de Chambord. For the Academy, -Argantguia filia Catmaili, 11Jan04 -- References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n Erennach. [2] O/ Corra/in and Maguire mention E/rennach, daughter of Murchad, king of Meath. According to quite a number of websites, Murchad Midi, king of Meath, lived in the early 8th century. For example: http://www.geocities.com/bpstratton/gedcom/d0007/g0000014.html [3] Genealogies from Rawlinson B 502, compiled by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Funded by University College, Cork and Professor Marianne McDonald via the CURIA Project. 1. First draft, revised and corrected. Proof corrections by Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, Dara Mac Domhnaill. (CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland, 1997). p. 207, genealogy 1114. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G105003/index.html [4] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2002). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex [5] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annals of Tigernach" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1996). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100002 [6] O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976). Index.