ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2986 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2986 ************************************ 3 Apr 2005 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael (no address) Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is a correct name for a French woman with an English father and Celtic mother living between 1350 and 1550. Here is the information we have found. Before we start, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time that it has taken to complete this report. We hope that this information is still useful to you. We'd also like to give you a bit information about the word "Celtic", which many people in modern times misuse. There was no language or culture called "Celtic" in our period. In fact, the word "Celtic" didn't exist in English until modern times. It is used by modern historians and linguists to describe a family of languages and the cultures which spoke them, including Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish, and Breton. These languages were distinct in our period, and they had very different naming practices which did not mix any more than any other two neighboring languages. The cultures which spoke them were separate, and had no sense of pan-Celtic identity. However, for the purposes of researching your name, it doesn't matter which of the Celtic cultures your mother was from: Although it is very common in the Society to try to indicate mixed parentage in one's name, it simply wasn't done in period. In the rare cases when two people from different countries married, their children were named according to the naming practices of the country where they lived. If your parents lived in France, than you would have a name that follows French naming practices, regardless of where your parents came from. We did not find any examples of . , with one , was used by English poets as a poetical pet name for Queen Elizabeth I. It seems likely that this is the origin of the name in England and modern usage. We have found only one example of a real person named , and it was an Englishwoman who was excommunicated in 1602. [1] It is therefore not a good choice for a French woman from your period. A related name might be appropriate, however. derives from Latin 'to rise', and this Latin word was the root of the name , , or which was frequently found in Old French romances, including one character who was the mistress of Amadis de Gaul. [1,3,4] While this alone doesn't show that the name is a good choice for a real person (many literary names were not in actual use), there is other evidence that does. There was a 5th century St. Orient or Oriens [5]; and we found a Latinized example of the feminine form of this name, , used in the 9th or 10th century. [6] The given name survived in use long enough to produce a surname that has survived to modern times as [5]; this implies that the name was probably in use as late as the 13th century. We found no direct evidence that the feminine form continued in use that late, but the romances suggest that the name was known somewhat later. We think it possible that it was in use in the 11th or perhaps even the early 12th century. The most likely form, , would have been pronounced \or-ee-AH~NT-@\, where \AH~\ represents a nasal vowel (pronounced partly through the nose), and \@\ represents the sound of the in or . If you would like to chose a French given name that is more appropriate for your period, we recommend these articles: "French Names from Paris, 1421, 1423, & 1438" http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/paris1423.html Academy of S. Gabriel Report #2904 (containing names from 15th C Lyon) http://www.s-gabriel.org/2904 "Given Names from Brittany, 1384-1600" http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/latebreton/ In the first half of your period, there were two main different ways of forming locative bynames (bynames that identify where the bearer is from). These are either using 'of' with the name of the city, or an ethnic style byname, such as 'the Breton [woman]'. In many cases, especially when the location in question is a region and not a city, these ethnic style bynames were more common than explicit locatives with the preposition. For example, , 'the Norman [woman]', and 'the woman from Poitou' are more common than , , or . In fact, we have not found any example of ; all our examples are of the ethnic style byname. In 1229 and 1296, we find a man recorded as . [2] Other examples of the masculine form include 1279, 1302, 1205, 1371, c.1400, and 1492. [7] Most of these have been Latinized; the standard Nicoise spelling is . We recommend that you use or , instead of . However, by the second half of your period, inherited family names had become the norm in some parts of France. A literal or some such would be found mostly among the nobility. A commoner would likely have dropped the preposition. A 15th or 16th century woman surnamed would most likely have been the wife or daughter of a man surnamed . 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 Arval Benicoeur, Maridonna Benvenuti, Talan Gwynek, Gunnvor silfraharr, Jillian Saint Andre, and Adelaide de Beaumont. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 03 April 2005 -- References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Oriana [2] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens, Musee de Picardie, 1967), p. 20 [3] Flutre, Louis-Fernand, _Table des noms propres avec toutes leurs variantes, figurant dans les romans du Moyen Age e/crits en franc,ais ou en provenc,al et actuellement publie/s ou analyse/s_ (Poitiers: Centre d'e/tudes supe/rieures de civilisation me/die/vale, 1962), s.nn. Euriaut, Orian(t), Oriande [4] Langlois, Ernest, _Table des Noms Propres de toute nature compris dan les Chansons de Geste_ (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971 [1904]), s.n. Oriant, Oriande [5] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987), s.n. Orient [6] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de Famille_ (Librairie Acade/mique Perrin, 1997), II:86 [7] Compan, Andre/, _E/tude d'Anthroponymie Provenc,ale: Les Noms de Personne dans le Comte/ de Nice aux XIIe, XIVe, et XVe Sie\cles_, thesis at the Universite/ de Paris IV, Dec. 1975 (Paris: Librarie Honore Champion, 1976), p. 766