ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2887 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2887 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 23 Jul 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if a name meaning 'Alexandros son of Christodoulos from Agios Nikonas' is appropriate for a Greek Byzantine living between 1000 and 1250. Here is the information we have found. is a fine given name. We find it twice between 1025 and 1261, and once in 1322. [1,2] is a fine choice as well, though it is more properly spelled ; we found it twice between 1025 and 1261 as well. [2] Here the slash represents an acute accent over the previous letter. was pronounced \ah-LAYK-sahn-drose\, where \drose\ rhymes with , not . [5] In your period, patronymic bynames (bynames indicating the bearer's father's name) were formed by changing the end of the name to <-opoulos>. [3] Thus, a byname meaning 'son of Khristo/doulos' would be . is a fine name for your period. was pronounced roughly \khree-sto-dhoo-LO-poo-lose\, with \kh\ being the sound of in Scottish or German , \dh\ represents the sound of the in , \o\ is pronounced as in , \oo\ as in , and \-ose\ as above. [7] The city previously called changed its name to in the 10th century, in honor of Saint Nikon. [4] (Here, the : represents a bar over the , representing the letter rather than .) However, we have no evidence that a man would have both a patronymic byname and a locative byname in your period. Furthermore, we are not sure how locative bynames were formed in Greek in your period, and so recommend that you do not use one. 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 you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Talan Gwynek, Maridonna Benvenuti, Ursula Georges, Juliana de Luna, Arval Benicoeur, and Adelaide de Beaumont. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 23 July 2004 -- References [1] Bardas Xiphias, "Personal Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire During the Later Byzantine Era" (WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/byzantine/introduction.html [2] "Byzantine Seals: 1025-1261" in "Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire" (WWW: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London). http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/PBE/seals/index.htm [3] Cheynet, Jean-Claude, "L'Anthroponymie Aristocratique a\ Byzance" in Bourin, Monique, Jean-Marie-Martin, and Francois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Me/diterrane/ens Me/die/vaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226 (Rome: E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996), pp.281-2. [4] "St. Nikon" (WWW: Lefktro.gr) http://www.lefktro.gr/english/diamerismata/agnikonas.php [5] In Kirschenbaum ASCII IPA, this can be represented as [a'leksandros]. [6] [6] Blaheta, Don, "Representation of IPA with ASCII" (WWW: Blahedo.org) http://www.blahedo.org/ascii-ipa.html [7] In Kirschenbaum ASCII IPA, this can be represented as [xristoDu'lopulos]. [6] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, Arval, 17 Jan 2005: There was an accent missing from the first use of .