ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2917 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2917 ************************************ 18 Sep 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate given name for an Hindu woman living between 1300 and 1600. If it isn't, you asked if we could recommend short, easy to pronounce, names that would be. Here is the information we have found. As we noted in our earlier letter, appears as both a man's name and a woman's name in modern times. We do not know when this name first came into use, but believe that it was originally a word imported from Arabic. Because our sources for medieval Hindu names are very slim, we cannot say for sure that was not used before modern times, but without evidence for it earlier, we cannot recommend that you use it. We can, however, offer you a list of some shorter, easier to pronounce women's names. The first five are from Tamil sources: [1] Ca^n.i Cuntari Ka^l.i Ma^ri Nakkan_ The following names are all Hindi or Sanskrit, from the late 15th and 16th centuries: [2] Bejji Chinnamman Ellamman Go^vindi Kuppa^yi Lingi S/elli S/evvi Sa^mavai Valandi Vengal.u Vengalu Yallamman In these lists, represents an underlined , represents an with a circumflex accent, the period represent a dot underneath the previous letter, and the slash represents an acute accent over the previous letter. We do not know what types of bynames were used by Tamil women in this period, but we do have some examples of women using more than one given name, e.g. . [1] The Hindu women, when recorded with a byname, tended to use a family name, which preceded the given name. [2] If any of these names interest you, please write us again and we'll be happy to try to give you a pronunciation. We should warn you ahead of time that the pronunciation of these names may not necessarily be transparent. In particular, is pronounced \TCH\, roughly, rather than \K\ as it sometimes is in English.` 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 Ursula Georges, Arval Benicoeur, Juliana de Luna, and Effrick neyn Kenneoch. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 18Sep2004 -- References: [1] Whitcher, Ursula, "Medieval Tamil Names" (WWW: Self-published, no date) http://www.doomchicken.net/~ursula/sca/onomastics/tamil/ [2] Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, "Women's Names from (Mostly) 16th Century Inscriptions at Tirupati (India)" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 1999) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/india/tirupati_f.html