ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2943
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2943
************************************

29 Oct 2004
From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael 

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You wanted to know when the Croatian name <Davor> was first used as a
masculine name.  Here is what we have found.

Unfortunately, we were unable to determine when <Davor> came into use
as a masculine name, though it is moderately common in Serbia and
Croatia today.  You said that this name was originally the name of a
female war goddess. We were unable to find any evidence to support
this. [1,2]  It appears that the name was actually of a war _god_ in
old Slavic mythology. [3]  We would not be surprised if <Davor> did 
not come into use until after the 17th and 18th centuries. [5]

We did find a place called <Davor>, but we do not know if it was
called this before modern times. [4]

We're sorry that we could not be of more help and hope that if you
have any further questions that you will not hesitate to write us
again.  Research and commentary on this letter was provided by
Walraven van Nijmegen, Maridonna Benvenuti, Arval Benicoeur, Ursula
Georges, and Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,

-Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 29Oct04

--
References:

[1] There is no <Davor> mentioned here: "Croatian Mythology" (WWW:
Croatica.net, May 2004)
http://www.croatica.net/en/magazin/reportaze/default.asp?id=2

[2] There is no <Davor> mentioned here: "SLAVIC and EURASIAN
PANTHEONS" (WWW: Self-published, no date).
http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/SlavPan.html

[3] Bosanac, Milan, _Prosvjetin Imenoslov_ (Zagreb: Prosvjeta, 1984),
s.n. Davor in the man's names list.  <Davor> is listed among the
masculine names, with the gloss 'ime boga rata u staroslavenskoj
mitologiji', which appears to be 'name of a war god in old Slavic
mythology'. [5]

[4] Movius, John, "Croatian Place Names: Alternate spellings 
(Austria, Hungary and Italy) and FHL Microfilm Summary" (WWW: 
FEEFHS, 1996)
http://feefhs.org/cro/crotowns.html

[5] This translation of the gloss is confirmed by Keber, Janez
_Leksikon Imen_ (Celje: Mohorjeva Dru{zv}ba, 1988), which discusses
<Davor>.  The discussion of the name focusses primarily on related
nouns and verbs appearing in 17th and 18th century Slovene and
Serbo-Croatian.  Briefly, the source (identified below) says that the
Slovene name <Davorin> is derived from the name <Davor>, which
corresponds to the Roman god Mars.  However, the name <Davorin> has
over time become associated with the Latin name <Martinus>.  There 
is apparently a Slovene noun <davorija> which means "battle hymn" or 
possibly "war song", and which in Serbo-Croatian means "national 
anthem".  The verb <davorti> means "to sing war songs".