ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2972 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2972 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 2 Dec 2004 From: Josh Mittleman Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is a correct name for an Irishman living before 1600. In general: yes, this is a fine name; but there are some details that should be corrected. is a late-period spelling of a name that was spelled before 1200 or so. The name was in use in Ireland before 1200, but it appears to have dropped out of fashion after that [1]. (A great many traditional Irish names used in modern Ireland dropped out of use in the Middle Ages and were revived in the 19th century as part of a fashion for Irish culture.) is not a correct form of the clan name; the form you want is (later-period , with the slash representing an acute accent mark over the preceding letter). Surnames that indicated clan membership came into use in Ireland in the late 10th century and became common in the 11th [2]. We have examples of this clan surname in the 10th and 12th centuries [3]: Domnall H. Neill 963 Muircertach h-Ua Neill 1160 Thus, is a fine name for a 10th-12th century Irishman. The surname was not in use before the 10th century and the given name seems not to have been used after the 12th century. The name was pronounced roughly \FIN-vahr OO@ N^AYL^\, where \@\ stands for the sound of the in or , \N^\ is the sound of in and \L^\ represents a sound that blends an \l\ with the \y\ in , i.e. the sound of in French or in Italian "of the". We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Mari neyn Brian and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 2 Dec 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2002), s.n. Finnbarr http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Masculine/Finnbarr.shtml [2] Royal Irish Academy, _Dictionary of the Irish Language: based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials_ (Dublin : Royal Irish Academy, 1983), s.v. ua. [3] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "The Annals of Ulster" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997), entries U963.1, U1160.6. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100001/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Correction by Aryanhwy, 10 Sep 2006: Corrected the pronunciation of .