ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3078 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3078 ************************************ 5 Sep 2005 From: "Brian M. Scott" Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked about a name suitable for a man living on the south Baltic coast around 618 CE, the son of a west Norwegian and someone from (or with close ties to) the area near the Vistula. You said that as a starting point you are currently using the name , but you know that is inauthentic; in its stead you would like suggestions for something similar, but you don't care for or anything similar to . You also mentioned having run across a name or , meaning either 'long hair' or 'fruitful', that might be suitable. You said that is your grandmother's maiden name, from a farm in western Norway. (Here stands for an with a slash , the penultimate letter of the Norwegian alphabet.) You added that you were more interested in reconstructing an early 7th century form of the place-name than in preserving the modern sense 'sea-shield' (Norwegian 'sea' and 'a shield'). Finally, you mentioned that because most people call you , you had considered using the byname 'Spike-'. You felt that it sounded too much like a mispronunciation of but thought that the 7th century Scandinavian pronunciation might sound better. We should begin by saying that our recommendations will necessarily be very tentative. Contemporary evidence of naming practices in your period is limited to a relatively small number of runic inscriptions (and perhaps some names recorded in foreign sources, though we are not at the moment aware of any actual examples of this type). For the most part, therefore, we have to work from later records and the history of the Scandinavian languages as reconstructed by historical linguists. This also means that some of the discussion will unavoidably be rather technical, but we'll put the worst of the technicalities in the footnotes. Finally, it means that the spellings that we'll use in talking about names in your period are scholarly fictions: they represent the approximate contemporary pronunciation using conventions derived partly from linguistics and partly from careful Icelandic spelling of the 13th century. You wouldn't be too far wrong if you thought of these spellings as ones that a literate 13th century Icelander might have used to represent the pronunciation of your period; the main exception is our use of . Throughout this letter we'll use some notational work-arounds to represent characters that aren't available in 7-bit ASCII. A slash, , stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter, and a double quote, <">, stands for an umlaut over the preceding letter. Others are less systematic: a*: a-ring, an with a small above it a,: a-ogonek, an with a reversed comma hanging from its lower edge {dh}: the letter edh, which looks like a backwards <6> with a short cross-stroke on the riser {oe}: the o-e-ligature, an and an squashed together to share a single vertical stroke in the middle o,: o-ogonek, an with a reversed comma hanging from its lower edge {th}: the letter thorn, which in print looks like a superimposed on a

so that they share a single loop; in the runic version the loop is replaced with a wedge A. Names Somewhat Similar to . There actually is an Old Norse name , but it is known only from mythology: in 'Vo"luspa/' it's the name of a god who appears in conjunction with (Odin) and . [1, 2] Since we have no record of its use by human beings, we agree that it would be a poor choice. We found just two masculine Old Norse names that begin with and were used by human beings, and . [3] is literally 'fur hood, fur cowl' and is found only once, as the name of a thrall in Norway; in all likelihood it was a descriptive nickname that was so generally used that it replaced his original name. [4, 5] At any rate we have no evidence that it was ever in general use as a name, let alone in the early 7th century, and cannot recommend it. also started out as a nickname, meaning 'shaggy, hairy', but by about 900 it had became a fairly common masculine name in Norway and Iceland, and forms of it are also found fairly early in eastern Scandinavia. [6] We have no way of knowing how early it became a name, but the distribution suggests that it might have happened as early as your period. [7] If it did, the name would then have been something like or perhaps . (The upper-case is intentional: in your period Old Norse had two r-sounds, and the scholarly convention is to use for one and for the other.) These are pronounced roughly \LOA-dhinrzh\ or \LOA-dhin-@rzh\, where \dh\ stands for the sound of in , not the sound in , and \@\ for the sound of in and . The awkward-looking combination \rzh\ stands for a sound whose exact value isn't known, but which may have been something like the in , but with the tip of the tongue curled back; the result sounds a bit like a 'buzzy' \r\ sound and a bit like a combination of \r\ with the \zh\ sound of the in . [8] Going a little further afield, we found three other first elements that seemed close enough in sound to be worth considering. One is , found in , , , and probably . Unfortunately, is found only as a fictional name; and is found once very early as a fictional name but otherwise not until the 14th century; the earliest known bearer of the name is a man who died about 980, and it was not much used even after that. None of these is clearly likely to be good historical re-creation even in a reconstructed form suitable for your period, and only might be worth further investigation; we'll return to it later. Finally, is found sometime around 900, but there is reason to think that it might not go back to your period in any form: the oldest Old Norse names ending in <-mundr> are probably those whose first elements are the names of higher powers and sacred objects, and doesn't fit that pattern. [12, 14, 15] Another is , found in the masculine names and . is found in Iceland a couple of times around 900 (though one of the bearers is elsewhere called ), in a 10th century runic inscription from the Isle of Man, and sporadically thereafter in Iceland and, after 1300, in Norway. [16, 17] This is very slim evidence on which to extrapolate the name back to the early 7th century, but it isn't out of the question that the name already existed in some form at that time; if so, it was probably something like . [18] This is pronounced very roughly \LEHoo-t@-wu-l@bhrzh\, where \EHoo\ stands for a diphthong consisting of the vowel of immediately followed in the same syllable by that of , \u\ stands for the vowel of , \@\ stands for the sound of in and , \rzh\ stands for the uncertain sound described above, and \bh\ stands for the sound of in Spanish 'a wolf' and of in Spanish 'a grape'. The closest English sound is \v\. Just as the sound \v\ is made by letting air pass between the upper teeth and the lower lip while vibrating the vocal cords, \bh\ is made by letting air pass between the upper and lower lips while vibrating the vocal cords. is another story altogether: it was very common in Iceland from the earliest period (i.e., the late 9th century) and fairly common in Norway, it is found in Swedish runic inscriptions, and there is some evidence for it in Danish place-names. Like , it began as a nickname, 'ugly, dreadful', but it seems to have come into use as an ordinary masculine name at a fairly early date. [22, 23] (The similarity to the first element of is coincidental.) As with , we can't be sure that the name goes all the way back to your period, but there's a reasonable chance that it does. If so, it would then have been something like , or perhaps already . These are pronounced roughly \LEEoo-t@rzh\ and \LEEoo-trsh\, though we emphasize that the pronunciation of the sound transcribed is very uncertain. [24] (Here we use \rsh\ to stand for a sound like \sh\, but with the tip of the tongue curled back.) The third similar element that we investigated is , which appears in the name . However, this name is not found until the 14th century, and the earliest example is probably of German origin; clearly it is not good historical re-creation for your period even in a suitably regressed form. [28] Finally, we return to for more detailed consideration. It is a prehistoric borrowing from a Continental Germanic dialect. It entered the Scandinavian name stock by way of Denmark, where it appears in the very early form in a runic inscription dated to about 500 CE. [29, 13] It is certainly possible that it had reached western Norway by your period, and it is the only one of these names that we've actually found in Scandinavia by that time, so in principle it would be a very good choice. Unfortunately, reconstruction of the history of the name poses significant problems, so we can only rather hesitantly offer the reconstruction for your period, representing a pronounciation something like \HLOW-dhu-wayrzh\; here \OW\ rhymes with , and \u\ is the vowel of . [3] B. Early Scandinavian Bynames. The runic record from your period and earlier is skimpy to begin with, and very few of the inscriptions contain anything that could possibly be interpreted as a byname of any kind. In fact, in the Pan-Nordic Runic Text Database we found only five possible examples from ca. 650 CE or earlier: [38, 39, 40] * From about your period or a little later we have the name 'Ha{th}uwulfaR, HeruwulfaR's son'. * From the first half of the 400s we have the name , which is either 'Hlewagastiz of Holt' or 'Hlewagastiz, Holti's son'. * From sometime in the period 400-650 we have the inscription 'Hariuha I am called, , I give good luck (or protection)'; means either 'danger-wise' or 'travel-wise' and seems to be used as an epithet. (It is not out of the question, however, that it's a boast, or that it has some ritual significance.) * From the 500s we have an inscription that is either 'I the eril am called the wily' or 'I the eril am called Sawiligaz'. (The meaning of is uncertain, so the translation simply renders it 'the eril'; it may mean 'rune-carver'.) On the first reading, 'the wily' is an epithet that might have functioned as a kind of byname, though here again it might conceivably have been a boast. On the second reading, is either a masculine name or possibly an epithet meaning 'the sunny one'. * From ca. 500 we have the inscription . It is uncertain whether this represents a masculine name followed by an adjective 'dear, beloved'; a masculine name with a preposed byname 'skin, fur'; or a two-element masculine name . This is not surprising: until well into the Early Middle Ages or later, the normal practice among Germanic-speaking peoples was to use only a single name. [41] In general, then, bynames are probably not good historical re-creation for your period, even when we can reconstruct suitably early forms for them. Still, it's clear from the first inscription noted above that a person could if necessary be described as his father's child. Since this type of description later became the archetypal Scandinavian byname, it might be just within the bounds of reasonable conjecture to add such a description on special occasions, especially if the father's name could be shown to have existed in your period. (Note, however, that the grammatical mechanism for constructing such descriptions is completely different from that of the later Scandinavian patronymics and requires specialized linguistic knowledge. [42]) The case for a description based on place of residence is significantly weaker; for instance, we have no certain early example, since may be 'son of Holti'. Moreover, there is the insurmountable practical difficulty that we know almost nothing about Scandinavian place-names in your period. For these reasons we cannot recommend using such a description. For completeness we nevertheless did investigate the name ; what we learned appears in Section D below. C. The Nickname 'Spike-'. The Old Norse word 'a spike' in some form undoubtedly goes back to your period, as it has cognates in several Germanic languages. [43] It is at least a reasonable possibility that the runic noted above represents a combination of preposed byname and masculine name, 'Skin-Leubaz'; if this is the case, then a similar construction with an appropriately early form of should not be out of place in your period. Unfortunately, while we have a good idea of how the word developed from its Proto-Germanic beginnings, we are unable to date some of the changes, even relative to your period. You period does not obviously demand either an especially early or an especially late form, so to the extent that we can recommend so conjectural a practice at all, we tentatively recommend the chronologically intermediate form , pronounced roughly \BROADH-dh@\. [44] We emphasize, though, that this is extremely conjectural and therefore definitely not the best historical re-creation. D. The Farm-Name . We were unable to find a Norwegian farm named , but we did find one, 'north Haskoll', whose name appears as sometime in the late 16th century, as in 1617, and as in 1723. These are clearly earlier spellings of modern , but even older spellings show that the name is actually from Old Norse 'grey rounded summits, grey knolls', from 'grey' and 'a knoll, a rounded summit'. [48] E. How to Write an Early Name The futhark, or runic alphabet, was the only writing system in native use in Scandinavia in your period. At that date the common Germanic futhark of 24 letters was still in use; you can see one version of it at http://www.arild-hauge.com/efuthark.htm (The words under the runes are a slightly inaccurate version of the original Proto-Germanic names of the runes as they have been reconstructed from the attested Scandinavian and Old English names.) [50] These runes can be transliterated as follows in your period: f u {th} {a,} r k g w h n i a i" p R s t b e m l ng d o (In other words, the rune called can be transliterated , the rune called can be transliterated , and so on.) Judging by the most extensive inscriptions from approximately your period, a couple of the rune shapes given by Hauge probably should be modified for that period: the s-rune should be aligned vertically, like the second example in Hauge's list of other versions or like its mirror image; and the a-rune (called by Hauge) should be replaced by a rune consisting of a vertical line with a small superimposed on its centre. [51] Using this transliteration scheme, runic spellings of the various names reconstructed above are as follows: Reconstructed Name Runic Spelling ------------------ -------------- Lo{dh}inR lo{th}inR Lo{dh}inaR lo{th}inaR LeutawulfR leutawulfR LiutaR liutaR LiutR liutR Hlau{dh}uwe/R hlau{th}uweR bro{dh}{dh}a- bro{th}a F. Summary Among names that seemed to us to have at least some similarity to , we can tentatively recommend , , , and . All involve a fair amount of conjecture, so none is the best historical re-creation, but this is almost inevitable when dealing with your period: we just don't have much evidence. and are earlier forms of names that later became quite common, and they're of a type that we know existed in your period, but we have no evidence of these specific names. is an earlier form of a name that did not become so common, but it's of a very common type. And a form of is actually attested before your period, but we don't know whether it had yet reached Norway, and the reconstruction of a suitable form is more than usually problematic. There is some evidence for preposed bynames as early as your period, but it's also open to other interpretations. On the assumption that such bynames were actually used, a name like (runic ) is as plausible as the individual reconstructions, but that's a lot of conjecture. We cannot positively recommend such a construction -- the evidence just isn't strong enough -- but we nevertheless think that it has a good chance of being authentic. Finally, we cannot recommend any kind of locative descriptor, i.e., one based on a place-name. Gunnvo,r Silfraha/rr and Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been useful and that you'll not hesitate to write again if you have any further questions. For the Academy, Talan Gwynek 3 September 2005 ===== References and Notes: [1] Lind, E.H. Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931); s.n. . [2] 'Vo"luspa/' (WWW: Netu/tga/fan, 1997). http://www.snerpa.is/net/kvaedi/volospa.htm [3] Lind, op. cit., s.nn. , . [4] Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson, and William A. Craigie. An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); s.vv. , . [5] Arno/rsson, Einar, ed. Landna/mabo/k I/slands (Reykjavi/k: Helgafell, 1948); p. 139. [6] Fellows Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire (Copenhagen: 1968); p. 190. [7] There are examples of adjectival names from your period or earlier. The collection in reference [40] includes 'broad', 'lame', 'black', and 'watchful, quick, undaunted'. [8] 'shaggy, hairy' is in origin the past participle of a Proto-Germanic verb * 'to grow', represented by Gothic , Old Saxon , and Old English , among others, all meaning 'to grow, to wax'. [9] (The asterisk means that this is a reconstructed form not attested in any written source.) The verb is a strong verb belonging to the second ablaut series, which means that the Proto-Scandinavian masculine past participle was *. To reach Old Icelandic , several sound changes had to occur: a-umlaut caused by the first */a/ lowered the */u/ to */o/, the last */a/ was syncopated, and the */R/, now in contact with the */n/, was assimilated. That would have produced *, but for reasons that aren't understood, the *<-anaR> always produces <-inn>; apparently the change in vowel occurred very early (though not until after a-umlaut had taken place). [10] There is evidence that all of these changes had occurred by 700 CE, at least for some speakers, but for the early 7th century our best guess is * or possibly even the more conservative *. The exact nature of the sound conventionally denoted by */R/ is unknown, and by about 900-1100 it had further developed into a trilled /r/ much as in Italian. In your period it might have been something like the in , but with the tip of the tongue curled back. [11] We'll represent this sound very approximately by \rzh\. [9] Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (WWW: OSA-Projektet, Svenska Akademien och Spra*kdata, Go"teborgs Universitet, 2005); s.v. http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/ [10] Haugen, Einar. Scandinavian Language Structures: A Comparative Historical Survey (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1982); Sections 2.3.3, 2.4.1(2), 2.4.6(11), 3.2(C2), 5.2.3(c). [11] Gutenbrunner, Siegfried. Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Altisla"ndischen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Unita"tsverlag, 1951); Sections 25.2, 26.I.1, 34.1. [12] Lind, op. cit. s.nn. , , , . Lind's use of instead of in appears to be idiosyncratic. [13] [13] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. Norsk personnamnleksikon. 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995); s.n. . [14] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 350. [15] Kruken, op. cit., s.n. . [16] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [17] Peterson, Lena. Nordiskt runnamnslexikon (WWW: Spra*k- och folkminnes-institutet, 2002); s.n. (where the colon stands for a macron over the preceding vowel). http://www.sofi.se/SOFIU/runlex/ [18] The first element of the name is probably from Proto-Germanic *. [17] The combination */ht/ normally developed into */tt/ and lengthened the preceding vowel, but */eu/, being a diphthong, was already long; perhaps this is why the Old Norse name has and not . The development of */eu/ to Old Norse took place after your period. [19] The second element is from Proto-Scandinavian *; judging by a runic inscription, probably of your period or a little later, in which the name element appears, it was probably <-wulfR> in your period, though it may still have been <-wulfaR>. [20, 21] The same inscription shows that the connecting vowel <-a-> of the first element had probably not yet disappeared, so we can reasonably conjecture that the name was probably or perhaps . [19] Gutenbrunner, op. cit., Sections 29.1, 30.4, 46.III.2. [20] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 351. [21] Gutenbrunner, op. cit., Section 7, Nr. 132. [22] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [23] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 190. [24] The word derives from Proto-Germanic *leutaz. [25] This remains unchanged in Proto-Scandinavian, but by about 700 it had developed into *liutR. [26, 27] It's impossible to date the various changes exactly, but for ca. 600 we think that is probably the best choice, though is not out of the question. [25] Ko"bler, Gerhard. Altnordisches Wo"rterbuch. 2nd edn. (WWW: Gerhard Ko"bler, 2003); s.v. . http://www.koeblergerhard.de/anwbhinw.html [26] Haugen, op. cit., Sections 2.4.3(5), 2.4.1(2), 3.2(C2). [27] Gutenbrunner, op. cit., Section 34.3. [28] Lind, op. cit., s.n. . [29] De Vries, Jan. Altnordisches Etymologisches Wo"rterbuch, 2nd edn. (Boston: Brill, 2000); s.n. . [30] The Continental Germanic name from which was borrowed can be reconstructed as a compound of elements * and *<-wi:gaz>. [31, 32] (There is some disagreement as to the exact first vowel of the first element, which may in fact have existed in more than one variant.) The element *<-wi:gaz> is a perfect match for the <-uigaR> of the early Danish runic . However, the element <-ve/r> in native Old Norse names probably comes from a slightly different but closely related Proto-Scandinavian * 'warrior'. [33] Most likely the native element was at some point substituted for the original one; we are assuming that this occurred very early. In the development of * to <-ve/r>, the disappearance of the */h/ and the lowering of the */i:/ to /e:/ are regular developments that had probably occurred by your period, so we reconstruct *<-we:R>. [34] The first element is a bit harder to reconstruct. Even before the earliest runic inscriptions, Proto-Scandinavian */u/ was lowered to */o/ when the next syllable originally had the vowel */a/, so original Germanic * can be expected to produce late Proto-Scandinavian *. A similar change was common in the Continental Scandinavian dialects, so it would not be surprising to find the same form in a borrowing. [35, 31] Unfortunately, neither */o/ nor */u/ explains the runic . Alternatively, we can attack the problem from the other end: Old Norse normally comes from Proto-Scandinavian */a/ followed in the next syllable by */u/ or */w/, but this matches neither the runic form nor the reconstructed *. [36] One apparent exception is Old Norse 'head', which is normally derived from Proto-Germanic *: in this word */au/ has developed into instead of the expected , presumably under the influence of the */u/ in the next syllable. [37] If the runic can be taken at face value, and if it developed similarly, the result would indeed be Old Norse , though how to get from * to remains a puzzle. [29] Finally, a runic inscription, probably of your period or a little later, shows retention of the connecting vowel between the two elements of names of this type, so we very tentatively reconstruct as a possible form of the name in your period. [21] [31] Tavernier-Vereecken, C. Gentse Naamkunde van ca. 1000 tot 1253: een bijdrage tot de kennis van het oudste middelnederlands (Belgium: 1968); p. 100. [32] Watkins, Calvert. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd edn. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000); s.r. . [33] Fellows Jensen, op. cit., p. 352. [34] Gutenbrunner, op. cit., Sections 30.3, 45.1. [35] Ibid., Section 26. [36] Ibid., Section 40.III. [37] Watkins, op. cit., s.r. . [38] Samnordisk Runtextdatabas (WWW: Institutionen fo"r nordiska spra*k, 2003); signa DR 359, DR 12, DR 261, DR BR61, and O"g 171 http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm [39] Looijenga, Jantina Helena. Runes Around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700; Texts & Contexts. Dissertation, Univ. of Groningen, 1997. [40] Peterson, Lena. 'Lexikon o"ver urnordiska personnamn' (WWW: Spra*k- och Folkminnesinstitut, n.d.). http://www.sofi.se/GetDoc?meta_id=1464 [41] Sonderegger, Stefan. 'Prinzipien germanischer Personennamengebung', in _Nomen et gens_, Dieter Geuenich, Wolfgang Haubrichs, and Jo"rg Jarnut, eds. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997); Section 2.1. [42] Both , which can be translated 'son of HeruwulfaR', and the earlier , which is either 'son of Holti' or 'of Holt', are actually adjectives formed from names by the addition of a suffix meaning something like 'of or belonging to'. The original Proto-Germanic form of the suffix, <-(i)ja(z)>, can be seen in ; in the later it has been distorted by various sound changes that occurred in the period between these two inscriptions. (See, for instance, the discussion of in [39], Chapter 5, and of in [40].) [43] De Vries, op. cit., s.v. . [44] Old Norse is from Proto-Germanic *. [45] The change from */u/ to */o/ is caused by the */a/ of the second syllable and occurred very early; the */a/ was lost later, but probably still by your period. The change of the final */z/ to */R/ is also quite early. The */z{dh}/ eventually developed into */{dh}{dh}/ and then to Old Norse

, but the timing of these changes is uncertain, as is that of the 'hardening' of */{dh}{dh}/ to /dd/. [46, 47] Depending on the timing, the word might have been (in chronological order) , , or in your period, with , , and as the corresponding preposed byname forms. [45] Ko"bler, op. cit., s.v. ; he spells it *, using a slightly different scholarly convention. [46] Gutenbrunner, op. cit., Sections 26.I.1, 34.3, 25.2, 38.6, 63. [47] Haugen, op. cit., Section 3.2 (C2, C4). [48] Rygh, Oluf. Norske Gaardnavne (WWW: Dokumentasjonsprosjektet, 1999); v.5, p. 319, Nr. 92. http://www.dokpro.uio.no/rygh_ng/rygh_form.html It appears from the recorded forms that by about 1500 the first part of the name was no longer understood, and the more familiar 'sea' was popularly substituted for it. (We know that at some point Old Norse went out of use. [49]) This left the to be accounted for, and even though modern Norwegian still has a word 'a knoll, a rounded mountain top', the combination was eventually reinterpreted as 'shield'. A modernized version of the original name was then restored sometime after 1723. [49] Cleasby et al., op. cit., s.v. . [50] Elliott, Ralph W.V. 'The Runic Script', in Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds., _The World's Writing Systems_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996). [51] Looijenga, op. cit., Ch. 5, Nrs. 38-41.