ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3109 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3109 ************************************ 12 Jul 2006 From: "Calybrid Ine Tere" Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for our opinion of as a French women's name, for any time period. Here is what we found. is primarily an Italian form, not French. The French form is . We don't know when the name came into use, but we have found it as early as 1503, and it is found numerous times in northern and central France throughout the 16th century [1, 2]. Unfortunately, some of our sources normalized spellings, so it's possible that the original documents use slightly different spellings, e.g., . However, we think that is a quite likely name for a French woman in the 16th century. Second, we discuss . We find an example of the surname in 1421, and twice in 1421 [3]. Despite the 1421 example of , we strongly recommend , not . The reasons are just a little technical, involving the history of the French language. In Old French the word was and was originally pronounced approximately \for-REST\. During the course of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, the gradually ceased to be pronounced in most dialects [4]. It continued to be written, however, much as we still write the now-silent and in [5]. It wasn't until 1740 that the was officially dropped by the French Academy and replaced by a circumflex accent over the to produce the modern spelling, , where we've used a caret to stand for a circumflex over the preceding . This use of the circumflex had actually been proposed as early as 1549 and occasionally appears in the 16th century, but such spellings are the exception, not the rule [6]. It's possible that the scribe deliberately omitted the silent , but if so, this was a rather rare exception to a well-established practice. It seems likely, therefore, that the 1421 instance of is either a scribal error or an editing error in our source. In any case, is clearly better historical re-creation. Based upon this information we suggest that would be a fine name for a French woman in the 16th century. We hope this letter has been useful to you. Please write to us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. For the Academy, Calybrid Ine Tere 12 July 2006 Also contributing to this letter were: Eleyne de Comnocke, Ursula Georges, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Ari Ansson Talan Gwynek, Juliana de Luna Maria Abramsdottir ------------------- References: [1] Aryanhwy merch Catmael (Sara L. Uckelman), "Late Period French Feminine Names" (WWW: Self-published, 2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/latefrench.html [2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan (Kathleen M. O'Brien), "Names Found in Ambleny Registers 1578-1616" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2005-2006), version 1.2, updated 01 June 2006. http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/Ambleny/ [3] Friedemann, Sara L. (aka Aryanhwy merch Catmael), "French Names from Paris, 1421, 1423 & 1438" (WWW: privately published, 2002-2003). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/paris1423.html [4] Pope, M.K., _From Latin to Modern French_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966 , Sections 377-8. [5] Ewert, Alfred, _The French Language_ (London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1953). p. 114. [6] Pope, M.K., _From Latin to Modern French_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966, Section 738.