ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2888 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2888 ************************************ 27 Apr 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a woman in Ireland between 701-750. We know of one example of a woman named , mentioned in the Annals in 726 and 732 [1, 2]. It wasn't a common name, but it's a fine choice. It was pronounced \KyEL-uhkh\, where \Ky\ represents a combination of \K\ with the \y\ sound in , as at the beginning of the word . \kh\ stands for the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . The normal spelling in your period of the Irish word for "daughter" was . It was pronounced \EEN-yuhn\. We also know of one in 8th century Ireland. This was a cleric who came to Ireland from England [3, 4, 5]; his name is an Irish adaptation of an Anglo-Saxon name, probably . If this name was adopted by Gaels at all, it was a rare name in Ireland in your period. We can't recommend it as the best choice, but we can't rule out the possibility that it was available. In your name, Irish grammar requires to become . The additional 'i' plays essentially the same role as <'s> in English . Another rule of Irish grammar requires a change in the pronunciation of the initial consonant when this word follows the feminine noun . Thus, although the name was pronounced \GAH-rahlt\, the phrase "Garalt's daughter" was pronounced roughly \EEN-yuhn GHAH-raltch\. Here \GH\ stands for a sound not used in English; it is the voiced equivalent of the \kh\ sound we used earlier. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, and Mari neyn Bryan. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 19 Apr 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Academy of S. Gabriel report 2718 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2718 [2] Index of Names in Irish Annals http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/ [3] Dated Names Found in O/ Corra/in & Maguire's Irish Names http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/ocm/ [4] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.v. Garalt. [5] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 1", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98), entry M726.4: "Garalt of Mayo". http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005A