ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3108 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3108 ************************************ 27 Jul 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether the name would be an acceptable name for a German woman living between the 13th- to 15th- centuries. Here is the information we have found. Since you were most concerned about the appropriateness of the byname, we'll begin with that. First, though, we need to give a little linguistic background. In your period there wasn't a single German language; instead there was a continuum of dialects gradually shading into one another. For convenience, however, they are grouped into about a dozen families of very closely related dialects. Closely related families are then grouped into larger families, and so on. A couple of these higher-level groupings have some bearing on the form of your byname. The first big split is between the Low German dialects, spoken in approximately the northern third of Germany, and the High German dialects, spoken in central and southern Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland. The High German dialects are further divided into two main subgroups, the Upper German dialects, spoken in the south, and the Middle German dialects, spoken in central Germany. Finally, there is a significant difference between the West Middle German and East Middle German dialects in their treatment of the byname. The dialect map at http://german.about.com/library/graphics/dilktmap.gif shows what all of this means in geographical terms; the West Middle German dialects occupy the yellow region west of its narrowest point, more or less. [1] In what follows we've limited our discussion to the High German region. We have better data from it, we know far more about its dialects, and the modern German word about which you inquired is of High German origin. In your period the usual High German word for 'dragon' was except in the West Middle German dialects, which had ; the variant is also occasionally found. [2] The word was used as a byname, and our examples of it show all three types: [3,4] Drache 1356, 1357 Trache 1360 Trach 1360 Track 1421 This byname has two quite different sources: sometimes it was a nickname likening the bearer in some way to a dragon, and sometimes it indicated that he lived in a house called 'at the Dragon'. [5] A clear example of the second type is the byname 1363 'of/from the [house of the] Dragon'. [4] We have not found a clear example the pure nickname type -- something like 'the Dragon', for instance -- but bynames of this form were moderately common in the 13th and early 14th century in southwestern Germany and Switzerland. Here is a selection of examples mostly based on animals and mythological creatures, first men's name, then women's: [6] Johannes der Bogge 1282 'the bogey' Cu[o]nrat der Butzze 1284 'the bogey' Walther der Esel 1280 'the ass' Heinrich der Lo"we 1300 'the lion' Agilwart dictus diu Nixe 1285 'called the water-sprite' Heinrich der Tu[']vel 1285 = Henrich der Tufel 1290 'the devil' Albertus diu Vorhenne 1297 'the trout' Junte diu bitterin 'the (female) beggar' 13th/14th c. Richenza diu Chilhbere 'the ewe lamb' 13th/14th c. Agnesa du['] Fu[']hsin = Agnesa du['] Wu[']chsin 'the vixen, female fox' Gu[o]ta du['] Fu[']chsin 'the vixen' 13th/14th c. Here <"> stands for an umlaut over the preceding vowel; symbols enclosed in square brackets also appear over the preceding vowel in the original text. An equals sign between two names means that they refer to the same person. '13th/14th c.' means that the citation is probably from the later 13th or early 14th century but cannot be dated more precisely. (We've included as another illustration of the grammatical modification whereby masculine bynames were feminized; this is discussed below.) A late 13th century byname or is entirely in keeping with this evidence, the latter being most appropriate in the West Middle German dialect area. (All of the citations with initial given above are from this area.) However, this is the masculine form of the byname. With certain exceptions that don't apply here, women's bynames almost always took somewhat different forms. Sometimes a woman's byname was the possessive form of her husband's or father's byname; more often, however, it contained a feminizing suffix, most commonly <-in>. [7] The suffix can be seen, for instance, in the bynames and above, in which it has been added to 'fox' and 'beggar'. It commonly caused certain vowel changes in the preceding syllable, like the change from to seen in . The standard scholarly form of the feminine of is , but the word is found in many variant forms, including among others , , and . [8] The change of in to in is another example of a vowel change caused by the suffix. This change didn't always occur, but it seems to have been more common than not. The standard feminine form of the definite article in the 13th and early 14th centuries was , as in above. [9] (The form is just a spelling variant.) Both and its West Middle German variant are fine feminine bynames for this period. By the 15th century bynames with the definite article are quite uncommon, and they seem to be distinctly in the minority in the 14th century as well, so we recommend that omitting the definite article much after 1300. Given names of non-German origin first achieved any real popularity in Germany in the 13th century, but appears in the West Middle German region by the 12th century, and we found two Upper German examples from the 12th century. From your period we found Upper German examples of 1242, 1256, 1267, 1292, 1283, 1327, and 1327. [10] We also found West Middle German examples of in each half of the 13th century, of in the first half of the 14th century, and of in the 15th century. [11] We did not find a High German instance of in your period; this form seems to be of Scandinavian origin. [10] We did find Upper German examples of 1242, 1256, 1267, 1292, 1283, 1327, and 1327. [11] We also found West Middle German examples of in each half of the 13th century, of in the first half of the 14th century, and of in the 15th century. [12] These last two forms are definitely German. Some of the others are most probably Latinizations of German or , but in the earliest examples the final <-a> may be German as well as Latin. is a fine name from the late 13th century through the end of your period, but for the early 13th century we recommend the documentary . To sum up, we recommend or West Middle German for the earliest part of your period. For the later 13th and early 14th centuries we recommend or West Middle German . For the remainder of your period we recommend that you drop the definite article from either of these forms. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Research and assistance in preparing this report were provided by Guido di Niccolo Brunelleschi, Talan Gwynek, Eleyne de Comnocke, and Ursula Georges. For the Academy, Luciana Caterina di Boniface & Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 27 July 2006 -- References: [1] More detailed information can be found at http://www.orbislingua.com/ead.htm The West Middle German dialects are the ones listed here as Rhine Franconian, Mosel Franconian, and Ripuarian. [2] Paul, Hermann, & Walther Mitzka. Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 19th edn. (Tu"bingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963); Sections 52, 102. [3] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann. Etymologisches Wo"rterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960), s.nn. Drach(e), Drack. [4] Bahlow, Hans. Deutsches Namenlexikon, Familien- und Vornamen nach Ursprung und Sinn erkla"rt. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 65 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985), s.n. Draa(c)k. [5] Brechenmacher, op. cit., s.n. Drach(e). [6] Socin, Adolf. Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch nach Oberrheinischen Quellen des Zwoelften und Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966), pp. 410, 412, 428, 431, 445, 447; 410, 412, 447. [7] Ibid., Chapter XXXII. Bynames of the types 'of Bu[o]tenhein' and 'at [the house called] the Partridge' were not feminized, and of course neither were inherently feminine bynames like 'the ewe lamb'. [8] Lexer, Matthias. Mittelhochdeutsches Handwo"rterbuch. Reprint of the Leipzig edition of 1872-1878 with an introduction by Kurt Ga"rtner. 3 Vols. (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 1992; WWW: University of Trier, 2003), s.v. trechinne. http://gaer27.uni-trier.de/MWV-online/MWV-online.html [9] Paul & Mitzka, op. cit., Section 148. [10] Kruken, Kristoffer, ed. Norsk personnamnleksikon. 2nd ed. (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1995), s.n. Kristin. [11] Socin, op. cit., pp. 88, 95, 622. [12] Mulch, Roland. Arnsburger Personennamen: Untersuchungen zum Namenmaterial aus Arnsburger Urkunden vom 13. - 16. Jahrhundert. Quellen und Forschungen zur Hessischen Geschichte, 29 (Darmstadt und Marburg: Hessische Historische Kommission Darmstadt und Historische Kommission fu"r Hessen, 1974), pp. 37-40.