ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3143 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3143 ************************************ 11 Aug 2006 From: Guaire mac Guaire Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a Viking woman. Here is the information we have found. The standardized Old Norse form of the given name is , where the slash stands for an acute accent over the preceding letter. This name is known only from a couple of Viking age runic inscriptions, one from the first half of the 11th century and the other from about 1100. [1, 2] These inscriptions are from Denmark and southwestern Sweden, but at that time the name could have been formed almost anywhere the Scandinavian dialects were spoken. It derives from a byname meaning 'cheerful' whose masculine forms are and and whose corresponding feminine forms are and . The masculine byname is found in Iceland by the end of the 12th century, and the word itself seems to be standard in both of the main branches of Old Norse. [3, 4] Moreover, there are many Old Norse given names that arose in this way from nicknames; just looking at the names of the original settlers of Iceland, for instance, all of whom lived around the year 900 CE, we find (among others) 'yeller', 'young pig, hog', and its feminine counterpart 'holy', and 'Shetlander'. [5] The name was pronounced roughly \KAW-tah\. The name was very common in Iceland from the initial settlement on through the entire Middle Ages. [6] A daughter of would typically carry the byname , which was pronounced roughly \HRAHFS DOAT-teer\, with \oa\ representing the sound of in . You asked when the name would have been appropriate. Based on the more restrictive timeframe within which was found, it would appear that would be a fine choice for the name of a Viking woman living between 1000 and the early 1100s. The spellings in are standard scholarly spellings based more or less on Old Icelandic practice of the 13th century. In the 11th century the name would most likely have been written in runes. Slightly different futharks (runic alphabets) were used in different times and places; two that would be appropriate are the Swedish Runes (from 1000 AD) at http://www.arild-hauge.com/esruner.htm and the Norwegian Runes ca. 1000-1050 AD at http://www.arild-hauge.com/enruner.htm With either of these futharks the name would be written (or rather, with the runes labeled with these letters). 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 Adelaide de Beaumont, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Guaire mac Guaire 11 August 2006 ---------- References: [1] Peterson, Lena, "Nordiskt runnamnslexikon" (WWW: Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research, 2001); s.n. . http://www.sofi.se/SOFIU/runlex/ [2] Uppsala University Department for Scandinavian Languages, "Samnordisk runtextdatabas" (WWW: Uppsala universitet, 29 Oct 1997); s.n. . http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm [signa DR 277 and Vg 79]. [3] Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB); s.n. . http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/ [4] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala: 1920-21); s.v. . [5] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931); s.nn. , , , , . [6] 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.