ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3073 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3073 ************************************ 24 Jan 2006 From: Mor inghean Chathail Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for our opinion of as a 12th century Irish Gaelic name. The only medieval examples we've found of the name are characters in Irish myth and legend [1, 2]. Without evidence that the name was actually used by real people in your period, we strongly recommend you choose a different given name. There's a good list of alternatives in this article: Index of Names in Irish Annals: Feminine Names We recommend you choose a name known to have been used in the period you want to re-create. The Irish phrase means "the daisies". (The slashes represent acute accent marks over the preceding letters.) The phrase meaning "of the daisies" is . The word means "the"; is its genitive (possessive) form, and thus means "of the". We have found no evidence of an Irish byname that meant "of the daisies". We did find other bynames based on the names of plants or meadows, probably all used to identify someone by the place where she lived. Examples include: [2] na Coilleadh [of] the Wood an Doire [of] the Oak-grove/Oak-wood an Fhasaigh [of] the Wilderness an Fheadha [of] the Wood an Gleanna [of] the Glen an Mhachaire [of] the Plain an Mhagha [of] the Plain na Raithnighe [of] the Fern/Bracken na Traga [of] the Strand We don't think that "of the daisies" fits into this pattern, so we recommend you choose another byname. Locative bynames (surnames that identified a person by the place she lived) were actually quite rare in medieval Ireland. A woman of your period was almost always identified as her father's daughter. There's an excellent discussion of the standard forms of Irish women's names in this article: Quick and Easy Gaelic Names We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Mari nic Brian, Talan Gwynek, Ari Anson, Adelaide de Beaumont, Arval Benicoeur, and Morgan Michaels. Mor inghean Chathail 24 JAN 2006 ----------------------------------------------------- References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Finnabair [2] The particular spelling is extremely unlikely to have been used at any time in history. Irish spelling conventions changed over time, and there was considerable variation at all times in our period; but there were spelling conventions, so certain spellings are plausible and others are not. This name would have been recorded as in the early period, before the 10th century or so. From the 10th century through the 12th, the typical spelling was ; thereafter it was . The spelling is almost never found after the 10th century or so; and the spelling was not adopted until the 13th century. The combination is therefore historically implausible. At least up through the 12th century the name was pronounced very roughly \FIN-@-bhar\, where \bh\ stands for the sound of in Spanish 'wolf' and 'grape'. It is made by positioning your lips to say a \b\, but relaxing them slightly so that the air escapes between them. [3] "Index of Names in Irish Annals: Masculine Descriptive Bynames" by Mari Elspeth nic Bryan (Kathleen M. O'Brien)