ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3026 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3026 ************************************ 3 Apr 2005 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael (no address) Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a German man living between 1350 and 1550. Here is the information we have found. Your given name is fine; in one study of names from cities in Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1495, , , and make up the 9th most popular masculine name. The spelling is not typical, however; we found it only once. [1] We also found at Heilbronn in 1525, at Hagenau in Alsace in 1518 (he also appears as ), and at Fulda in 1559. [6] We have found no evidence for bynames like in your period. The preposition 'of' was commonly used with the names of towns and villages, but not with the names of large regions. Bavarians, Hessians, Saxons, Swabians, Thuringians, etc. were seen as distinct peoples. You weren't so much _from Bavaria_ as _a Bavarian_. Nowadays we'd probably say that it was more a matter of ethnicity than of geography. Thus, when a man was identified by the region he came from, it was more common to use an adjective form of the region name, e.g. . We found one in 1438, making this a fine choice for your byname. [2] Other examples that we found from 1495 include: [3] Contz Beyer Lenhart Beyerer Hanns Beyer Katherin Beyerin (using a feminine form) Beyer Hanns 'Bavarian Hans' We also found one in the 14th c. [4] The byname also often appeared as or [5]. These bynames were pronounced \PAY-yehr\ or \PAY-gehr\, \BAY-yehr\ or \BAY-gehr\. We believe both pronunciations were used in your period, but the \y\ pronunciations eventually won out. 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 Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Margaret Makafee. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 03 April 2005 -- References: [1] Uckelman, Sara L. "German Given Names from 1495" (WWW: privately published, 2003-2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/german1495.html [2] Schwarz, Ernst. _Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts_ (Mu"nchen: Robert Lerche, 1973), s.n. Bayer [3] Schmid, Peter. _Der Deutsche Orden und die Reichssteuer des Gemeinen Pfennigs von 1495: Die Grundherrschaft des Deutschen Ordens im Reich an der Wende vom 15. zum 16 Jahrhundert_. (Neustadt: Degener in Kommission, 2000.) [4] Socin, Adolf, _Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch. Nach oberrheinischen Quellen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts_ (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1903; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966), p. 553 [5] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960), s.n. Bayer [6] Bahlow, Hans, _Deutsches Namenlexikon : Familien- und Vornamen nach Ursprung und Sinn erklaert_ (Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985, 1990), s.n. Wendelken