ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3027 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3027 ************************************ 07 Jun 2006 From: Ursula Whitcher Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether , a name from the Romansch language of southeastern Switzerland, was used before 1600. You also asked what other names might have been used with . You were especially interested in Romansch forms of ; in particular, you asked about the name . Before we begin, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time this letter has taken. We hope this information is still useful to you. First we'll discuss Romansch forms of , and then forms of the byname . We'll end by suggesting forms of the full name, and discussing possible pronunciations. We found forms of used as both a given name and a byname before 1600. [1] (In the following list, <"> represents an umlaut or pair of dots over the previous letter.) Stevanus 1310 Stephanus 1326 Stefanus 1358 Stefannus 1378, 1380 Stefenus 1382 Ulricus dictus Stephan 1418 Uli dicti Stephanin 1418 Pedrus f. q. Stefani del Borzia 1451 Magdalena Steffan 1456 Ulrich Steffen 1485 Blasinus Steffanus 1427 Henricus Steffani de Chur 1432 Peter Steffan 1496 Nuttal Stefan 1499 Petter Sta"ffan 1513 an Hanns Steffans guot 1515 Crist Jacob Steffan 1517 Tresch Steffant 1525 Moretzi Steffen 1526 N. Steiwan 1527 Martino de Stefano 1542 Hans Steffan 1544 an Gutscha Steffans guot 1545 Casper de Stephen 1551 Jan Steffan 1556 Urschletta Steffen 1564 Giov. de Steveno 1576 Jacob del Sta"ffan 1581 Anna lg Steivan 1594 Thieny Hans Steffen 16c. Jannet dilg Steffen 1609 Many of these forms come from documents written in Latin. The endings <-us>, <-o>, and <-i> are requirements of Latin grammar. However, the Latin form may also have had more subtle influences on the name's spelling. The 1527 and 1594 forms may be the best representations of the way the name was pronounced in the sixteenth century. We also found in 1640 and in 1655, so a pronunciation close to modern may have been possible by the end of our period. The modern name derives from the Middle High German 'clown, joker'. The form comes from the Oberland and Surselva regions of Switzerland; other regional variants include and . [2] We found the following forms prior to 1600 [3]: dictus Go"ggelli 15c Go"gglinen guot 1444 nepotes q. Michaelis Go"ggelin 1460 Batrumia Gickhilgla 1527 We found c. 1600. We also found several seventeenth-century forms similar to [4]: Paulus Tgietgel 1653 Joannes Theighel 1681 Leonardus Thiechel 1690 A name such as or is possible around 1600. We don't have sources which discuss historical pronunciation of Romansch, but we can extrapolate based on the modern pronunciation. We believe would have been pronounced roughly \STEF-en TCHEH-tchel\. However, the sound represented by isn't exactly English \tch\: it's made with the tip of the tongue turned down behind the lower front teeth. could have been pronounced \STAY-vahn TCHEH-tchel\. I hope this letter has been useful to you. If any part is unclear, or if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to write to us again. Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Modar Neznanich, Arval Benicoeur, Aelfwynn Leoflaede dohtor, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, and Athenais Bryennissa assisted in researching and writing this report. For the Academy, Ursula Georges 7 June 2006 References: [1] Robert von Planta, Andrea Schorta, and Konrad Huber, eds. _Ra"tisches Namenbuch_, vol. 3, Die Personennamen Graubu"ndens mit Ausblicken auf Nachbargebiete, Bern, 1986, Dictionary of Surnames s.n. . [2] von Planta et al. part 2, "Die Bezeichnung nach der Wesensart". [3] von Planta et al. Dictionary of Surnames s.n. . [4] von Planta et al. Dictionary of Surnames s.n. .