ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3120 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3120 ************************************ 4 Jul 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if 'Odhran of the songs' is an appropriate name for a Scottish Gaelic man living any time between 500 and 1400. (Here, we're using the \ to represent a grave accent over the previous letter). Here is the information we have found. Unfortunately, we don't believe that this is a reasonable choice. (where the / represents an acute accent over the previous letter) is a later-period spelling of , which was the name of seventeen early Irish saints. [1] We have not found any evidence that this name was used in Scotland. In the early part of our period there was a large amount of overlap in the names used in Scotland and the names used in Ireland, and so it's possible that was also used in Scotland. However, without a clear example, we recommend that you do not use this as your given name. Descriptive bynames, including ones indicating an occupation, were quite rare in Scottish Gaelic in our period. Ones that were used tended to be fairly straightforward: We would expect to see a byname meaning 'singer' rather than the more poetic 'of the songs'. [2] However, even in Ireland, where we have more examples of descriptive bynames, we were unable to find anyone described as a singer. The closest that we could find to something with your desired meaning is 'harper', which we find in the example or , found in 1434 and 1435. [4] (Note that these are both Scots spellings, not Gaelic; Scots is a language closely related to English which was spoken in the Lowlands of Scotland. [5]) If you would like to consider alternatives for your name which are more appropriate, we recommend that you take a look at the following articles: "Scottish Names 101" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/scotnames101.shtml "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.shtml "Scottish Gaelic Given Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/gaelicgiven/ The most common type of byname in Gaelic Scotland throughout the period you're interested in is the patronymic byname, e.g. one indicating the bearer's father's given name. If you chose a name for yourself and for your father, we'd be happy to determine the correct grammar and pronunciation for those elements. Please don't hesitate to write us again if you have any further questions. We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Research and commentary was provided by Talan Gwynek and Mari neyn Brian. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael 04 July 2006 -- References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990) s.n. Odra/n [2] This is in keeping with the types of bynames found in [3]. [3] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/ [4] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986) s.n. [5] Krossa, Sharon L. (Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte), "Scottish Names 101 (2nd Edition)", (WWW: Privately published, 20 Aug 1998). http://www.MedievalScotland.org/scotnames/scotnames101.shtml