ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3004 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3004 ************************************ 3 Apr 2005 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a German woman living between 1450 and 1550. Here is the information we have found. In our period, there wasn't a uniform German language, but rather a collection of dialects that varied from one region to the next. These dialects fall into two major groups: Low German in the north and High German in the south, including Bavaria and Austria. High German is further subdivided into Upper German, spoken in the south, and Middle German, spoken in the center between the High and Low German regions. A map of the breakdown of these dialects can be found here: http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm Some names were used only in one region (and therefore only in one dialect) or another; other names were used in all dialects but spelled or pronounced differently in each dialect. Therefore, your choice of name may depend on exactly what part of Germany you want to re-create. We have found a number of examples of various spellings of in the 14th century. It appears as 1310 and 1363 in Silesia in eastern Germany, as in Bremen 1310, in the 14th century, and in a man's surname 1362 near Nidda, in the Arnsburg area. We haven't found any evidence that remained in use into the 15th and 16th centuries, though we believe it was still used occasionally in the early 15th century. If it was, we believe that , pronounced \EERM-gart\ is the most likely spelling for High German. A Low German form might be . A pet form of the name, , is recorded in 1346 and 1371 [1,2,6]. The same pet form was apparently in use in 1412, when we find a man named whose surname probably means "Yrmel's son", and in 1465 in . However, this could as easily derive from the more-common as from [3,7]. The short form itself remained in use: It appears as in 15th century Arnsburg [4], and as , , , and in Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1495 [5]. It is a good choice for the early 16th century, at least in those regions, which used Upper and Middle German dialects. The spellings without the final <-e> were pronounced \EER-mel\; with the final <-e> it was \EER-meh-l@\, where \@\ represents the sound of the in and . We believe that this spelling is typical of High German; in Low German, we believe that is more likely. We found one example of the byname 'hare-sleep' in 1442. [7] This is from the borderline between Low and Middle German. The in <-slaff> is a Low German spelling; in the parts of the German-speaking area where most of our later examples of the given name and its pet form are found, we would expect the spelling instead, as in the modern . would be pronounced roughly \HAH-zen-shlahf\, and would be pronounced roughly \HAH-zen-slahf\. 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 Florens van Flardingh, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Walraven van Nijmegen. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 03 April 2005 -- References: [1] Bahlow, Hans, _Unsere Vornamen im Wandel der Jahrhunderte_, Vol. 4 in the series _Grundriss der Genealogie_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn: C. A. Starke Verlag, 1965), s.n. Irmgard. [2] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia", revised edition (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/bahlow [3] Schwarz, Ernst, _Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen aus vorhussitischer Zeit_ (Koeln: Blehlau Verlag, 1957). s.n. Irmler [4] Talan Gwynek, "15th-Century German Women's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997). http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/german15f.htm [5] Uckelman, Sara L. "German Given Names from 1495" (WWW: Self-published, 2002-2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/german1495.html [6] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357), s.nn. Armgardt, Ermgard, Ermel. [7] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960). s.nn. Hasenschlaf, Irmler