ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2833 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2833 ************************************ 12 May 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if 'Constance Water House' is an appropriate name for a Frenchwoman living between 1100 and 1350. Here is the information we have found. appears in 12th century records from Anjou and Bas- Languedoc. [1,2] Both and are found from the 9th to the 12th century. [3] These are both Latin forms that are appropriate for written contexts only. In 1292 we find the spelling , and in the 1200's the name is recorded as . [2,8] Both of these would be appropriate for the last 100 years or so of your period. was pronounced roughly \koo~-TAHN-s@\. Here, the \@\ represents the sound of in or , and the \oo~\ represents a nasalized \oo\ sound. [5] Determining the correct spelling and pronunciation for a spoken form of the name for the earlier part of your period is a much more difficult task, primarily because many of the records from this period are in Latin. We simply don't have the resources to make an informed guess. We did not find any evidence for a byname like . While we can't be sure that no such byname existed, we've found nothing much like it, and are not sure what a 'house of water' (as translates) would be. The nearest English equivalent, , probably refered to someone who lived in a house by water, but in French this is usually represented by the byname 'of the water'. [4,7] This is recorded in Paris in 1292 as and ; in the same time and place we also found one 'above the water'. [8] If your desire is for a byname appropriate for someone living near water, then we recommend that you use one of these forms. If, on the other hand, keeping in your byname is important to you, we can recommend an alternative. Both and were fairly widespread surnames; they likely refer to one of various places named 'the houses' or 'new house'. [4] In Paris in 1292, the word is consistently spelled , so and are also possible choices for your byname. [8] 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 Arval Benicoeur, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 12May04 -- [1] "Noms de Femmes Releve/s dan les Divers Cartulaires E/tudie/s" in Monique Bourin and Pascal Chareille, eds., Gene\se Me/die/vale de l'Anthroponymie Moderne (Tours: Universite/ de Tours, 1992), t.II, pp.231-242. [2] 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. 112 [3] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972). II.36, s.n. Constancia [4] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987). s.nn. Delaigue, Leau, Surleau [5] This pronunciation can be represented in Kirschenbaum ASCII IPA as [ku~'tans@], respectively. [6] [6] Blaheta, Don, "Representation of IPA with ASCII" (WWW: Blahedo.org) http://www.blahedo.org/ascii-ipa.html [7] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). s.n. Waterhouse [8] Geraud, Hercule, _Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel: d'apre/s des documents originaux et notamment d'apre/s un manuscript contenant Le Ro^le de la taille impose/e sur les habitants de Paris en 1292_ (Paris : Crapelet, 1837). pp. 37, 39, 70, 105, 116, 128, 156