ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2876 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2876 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 14 Jul 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked if 'Aelia, daughter of Apollos', is an appropriate name for a woman living in 6th C Byzantine Constantinople. Here is the information we have found. In the Roman Empire during your period, the naming pool drew from two primary sources: Greek names and Roman names. Because Byzantium was primarily Greek speaking, we would expect to find names with Greek roots to be more common than ones with Roman roots. However, some of the Roman names entered the name pool early enough that by the 6th century, distinguishing them as Roman or Greek may mean very little. Furthermore since Byzantium was the capital of the eastern Roman empire, it would not be surprising to see names of Roman influence there. We have found two instances of the feminine name used in the Roman Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries. Both instances were of women who originally had other names and took upon marrying an emperor. [1] The name was originally a Roman nomen; however, an who was the wife of Theodosius I was made a saint by the Greek Orthodox Church at a very early date, so it could have entered the Greek naming pool at a time before your period. [3] Since we have not found an example of it being used by a Greek woman in Byzantium, we cannot recommend it as the best recreation. The Greek masculine name is also found twice in the Roman Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries. [1] In ancient Greek, patronymic bynames (bynames based on the bearer's father's name) were somewhat common. There were two ways that these were created: by putting the father's name in the genitive case (e.g. from ) or by making an adjective out of the father's name. By the 4th century AD, these bynames had, however, by and large disappeared. [2] We are not certain whether they were still in use in the 5th and 6th centuries. If they were, then the genitive of is , and our best guess at the adjectival form of is . We cannot recommend either or as the best re-creation, however, because we have no evidence that this type of byname was used in your period. If you are interested in picking a byname of a type that we know was used in your period, we can make a few recommendations. Men were often recorded with an occupational byname, such as scribe, or other type of imperial official. We also found a woman known as 'Epiphania who is also Eudokia'; she was the daughter of an emperor, whose mother's name was before changed her name to (yes, one of the two s mentioned above). [4] (The represents the Greek letter eta, as opposed to epsilon, which is transliterated merely as .) Since we cannot recommend a patronymic based on , we thought you might be interested in other ways of using that element in your name. We found in your period the feminine names and . or would both be possible names. [2] 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 we can be of further assistance. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Maridonna Benvenuti, Juliana de Luna, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Ursula Georges. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 14 July 2004 -- References: [1] Bardas Xiphias, "Common Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire During the 6th and 7th Centuries" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/byzantine/early_byz_names.htm l [2] Fraser, P.M., and E. Matthews, "The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names" (WWW: Oxford University, 1998) http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/ [3] Kirsch, J.P, "{AE}lia Flaccilla" (WWW: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, 2003-2004) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06089b.htm [4] Martindale, J. R., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, volumes IIIa and IIIb, Cambridge University Press, 1992. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, Mar 2005: Ursula spotted 'episilon' for 'epsilon'.