ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3075 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3075 ************************************ 2 Oct 2005 From: Femke de Roas Greetings from the Academy of St. Gabriel! You asked us if we could suggest a name similar to that would be appropriate for a 9th century Frankish man. Here is what we found. By the 8th century, the term 'Frank' would have simply have meant 'an inhabitant of northern Gaul' [1]. The name is a pet form of an earlier form of the Welsh name ; our earliest examples, in the form , are from Domesday Book and refer to men living in 1066 [2]. Thus, it is unlikely that the name is appropriate for 9th century France. There was, however, a similar masculine name of Germanic origin that appears in France as in the 8th and 10th centuries, as in the 9th century, and as in the 10th century [3]. These forms, however, are from Latin records, and it takes a bit of digging to uncover the underlying vernacular names. The details are rather technical, so we've relegated them to a footnote [4]. Our conclusion is that the name would most likely have been , pronounced roughly \GREE-f@\, in the early Old French of your period. (Here \@\ stands for the sound of in and .) Unfortunately, the vernacular was only just starting to be written in the 9th century. In fact, only two 9th century vernacular works survive, one from 842 and the other from about 880, and both use some Latin spellings alongside attempts to represent the vernacular [11]. Thus, is something of a fiction: it represents the spoken name as accurately as we can reconstruct it, but in a written form that may well not have been used for another century or two. In writing we would on the whole still expect to see , at least until very late in the 9th century. Surnames were uncommon in France in the 9th century, with about 20% of the individuals recorded in our sources at that time having a surname recorded. This figure is from the southwest, where the French use of bynames began. The percentage in the region you have asked about was probably lower [13]. Most of these are patronymic in form and we suggest that you follow that model, rather than continuing to use a locative byname. We can offer a Latinized version of a patronymic byname with considerable confidence. A vernacular spelling is likely to involve considerably more speculation. Note that is a medieval English form of the modern English place-name ; the earliest known instance of this spelling is from 1188. The name is of Old English origin, so even in a 9th century form it would clearly be altogether unsuitable in a French name. [14] We hope that this letter is useful to you. Please do not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter were provided by Arval Benicoeur, Gunnvor Silfraharr, Alzbeta Michalik, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Femke de Roas October 2, 2005 ________________________________________________________________________ REFERENCES [1] Lodge, R. Anthony, _French: from Dialect to Standard_ (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 63-4. [2] Von Feilitzen, Olof, _The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book_ (Uppsala: 1937), p. 275. [3] Morlet, Marie-The/re\se, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Sie\cle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965, 1972, 1985), I:115a. [4] Gallo-Romance nouns, including personal names, had two grammatical forms. To oversimplify just a little, one form, called the nominative case, was used when the noun was the subject of a sentence, and the other, called the oblique case, was used in most other grammatical contexts. Short names of Germanic origin whose nominative cases ended in <-o> in early Gallo-Romance had oblique cases ending in <-one>, some fairly well-known examples being ~ , ~ , and ~ . The forms changed a bit as Gallo-Romance developed into Old French, but the two-case pattern remained, yielding for these names Old French ~ , ~ , and ~ . [6, 7] We can be quite sure that followed the same pattern, with early Gallo-Romance nominative and oblique , so it remains only to determine what changes would have occurred by the very early Old French of your period. The name is related to Old High German 'to seize, to grasp'; from this word (or its Frankish cognate) is derived Old French 'claw' [3, 8]. The name would normally also have developed into , since final <-o> was regularly lost, but in names of this kind it usually shows an exceptional development to <-e> [5]. This can be seen clearly in above; the <-e> is also visible in , though the has been lost as a result of other sound changes. Thus, the early Old French vernacular form of the name was most likely . The oblique case ending <-one> regularly developed into Old French <-on>, just as in all of the examples above [9]. Thus, the oblique case form will have become in early Old French; this was pronounced roughly \gree-FOON\, with \OO\ as in . By the end of the 13th century, the Old French system of separate nominative and oblique forms of nouns had completely broken down, and one form was used in all grammatical contexts. Usually it was the oblique form that survived, and indeed we find a masculine name in Paris in 1292 that is very likely a rare survival of the name that we've been discussing [10, 12]. Personal names sometimes survived in both forms, the two then being treated as independent names, as in the case of the pairs ~ , ~ , and ~ previously mentioned. In your period, however, the grammatical distinction was still observed, and would have been used only as the oblique case of the name . [5] Regula, Moritz. Historische Grammatik des Franzo"sischen. 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universita"tsverlag, 1956), II:25. [6] Lebel, Paul, _Les noms de personnes en France_, 6th ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), p. 58. [7] Pope, M.K., _From Latin to Modern French_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966), Sections 30, 793. [8] Robert, Paul, _Le Petit Robert 1: Dictionnaire alphabe/tique et analogique de la langue franc,ais_ (Paris: Le Robert, 1985), s.v. . [9] Pope, M.K., _From Latin to Modern French_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966), Section 800. [10] Ewert, Alfred, _The French Language_ (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1953, Sections 182-4. [11] Ewert, Alfred, _The French Language_ (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1953), Sects. 7, 152-3. [12] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html [13] Monique Bourin, "France du Midi et France du Nord", in: _L'anthroponymie, document de l'histoire sociale des mondes me/diterrane/ens me/die/vaux_. Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226. Monique Bourin, Jean Marie Martin and Franc,ois Menant, eds. (Rome and Paris: Ecole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996). pp. 179-202. [14] _Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society_, Edited by Victor Watts, Edited in association with John Insley, Margaret Gelling (Cambridge University Press: January 2004), s.n. .