ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3113 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3113 ************************************ 7 Jul 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for information on naming practices in Aosta, in northern Italy, between the 13th and 16th centuries, in particular whether a woman living there would have a French name or an Italian name. Here is the information we have found. As you know, Aosta is right on the border of modern day Italy and France. The valley came under the control of the House of Savoy in 1034, and the House of Savoy used French as its official language. [4] However, the residents of Aosta in general continued to speak their native dialect, which was Valdoten. Valdoten is a Franco-Provencal dialect; these dialects are closely related to French and Occitan but form a distinct family. [1,2] Unfortunately, many of our records from this period are in Latin, and not Valdoten. These Latin spellings of names are appropriate for written contexts, or contexts where Latin is spoken, but they may not closely represent the spoken form of the name. With feminine names, things are a bit more straightforward than with masculine names, where the Latinization can often heavily obscure the underlying form. We can compare feminine names found in Latinized data in and near Aosta with examples of feminine names recorded in Franco-Provencal dialects in other parts of southern France. Based on this, we are able to offer some suggestions. We found the following feminine names in Latin records from Aosta dating to 1337 and 1351: [3] Agnessona, Agnissona, Annesona Anthonia Audisia Beatrisia, Beatrisona, Biatrisia, Biatrisona Catherina Fina Francesia Guia Henrieta Issabella, Ysabella Losaneta At best, we can only speculate on the vernacular forms of these names. If any of these interest you, please write us again and we will try to determine a vernacular form. [5] Most of these names are also found in Latin records from Valais, Switzerland, during the 14th to 16th centuries. Based on this similarity, we also believe that the feminine names listed in the following article are appropriate: "14th-16th C Names from Valais, Switzerland" http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/swiss/valais.html A few of the names in this article show clear German influence; these may not be appropriate for a woman living in Aosta, so if you chose a name from this data, please write us and we can confirm whether it is an appropriate choice. The women in the records from Aosta were usually recorded as someone's sister, daughter, or wife, e.g.: [3] Issabella filia Peroneti, 'Issabella daughter of Peronetus' Biatrisona uxor Vuillelmeti de Vachayri, 'Biatrisona wife of Vuillelmetus of Vachayri' Guia eius sorore, 'Guia his sister' There are also a few examples of women using a locative byname, e.g. one based on the name of a city: [3] Biatrisie de Cly ( is a Latin genitive or dative) Catherine de Dovia ( is also an inflected form) You can find examples of such locative bynames in the Valais article cited above. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Maridonna Benvenuti, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, William Lyons of Portland, Sara Marino, Adelaide de Beaumont, Giudo di Niccolo Brunelleschi, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 07 July 2006 -- References: [1] See the map on the side-bar at http://www.italica.rai.it/principali/lingua/bruni/mappe/mappe/f%5Fdialetti.htm [2] "Franco-Provenc,al language" (WWW: Wikipedia.org) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Proven%C3%A7al_language (here stands for the c-cedilla). [3] Uckelman, Sara L., "Feminine Names from Aosta, 1337 and 1351" (WWW: Self-published, 2006) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/aostafem.html [4] "Val-d'Aoste: Re/gion autonome de la Valle/e-d'Aoste | Regione Autonoma della Valle d'Aosta" (WWW: tlfq.ulaval.ca, 2005) http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/AXL/europe/italieaoste.htm, sections 3.3, 3.4. [5] Although we haven't looked into these in any great detail, we believe that , , and might be vernacular forms of and its variants, and , and and its variants, respectively. This is based on the surnames , , and found in Valais. The surnames in this data set tend to show less influence of Latinization, and more closely represent the spoken forms. [6] [7] Uckelman, Sara L., "14th-16th C Names from Valais, Switzerland" (WWW: Self-published, 2005-2006) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/swiss/valais.html