ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3150 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3150 ************************************ 19 Sep 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for information on early Bulgarian names from the first Bulgarian kingdom, particularly Old Bulgar, as opposed to Slavic Bulgarian, elements. As you've found in your own research, and as we said in our initial reply, there simply aren't many surviving records of Old Bulgar names. However, we've been able to put together some information which we hope is of use to you. The Bulgars were a Turkic people who first show up on the historical scene after the end of the Hun Empire, at the end of the 5th century. [1] The current opinion is that Old Bulgar is a Turkic language (though some have proposed that it was actually Iranian, and hence Indo-European). Surviving records of Old Bulgar are extremely rare, and much information about the Bulgars and their names has to be taken from records of them in other languages, such as Greek and Latin. [2] Most of the names that we've found are the names of the kings or tribal leaders of the Bulgars. The following are names of members of the Dalo (or Dulo) tribe: [3,4] Kubrat, a 7th century khan Kuver, 3rd quarter of the 7th century Asparukh, a son of Kubrat Tervel, son of Asparukh, formed an alliance in 705 with Justinian II There is a gap in our data for about a century. At the end of the 8th century, the Dalo were no longer the royal dynasty, but had been superceded by the Pannonian Bulgars. The names of the men in this dynasty are as follows: [5] Kardam Krum, succeeded Kardam in 802 or 803 Omurtag, son of Krum, became ruler in 814 Omurtag was succeeded by his youngest son, Malamir, around ~830, and Malamir was succeed by his nephew, Boris in 852. This marks the start of the influx of Greek and other non-Bulgar names into the name pool. and are both Slavic names, and two of Boris's sons bore non-Bulgar names: (which is Slavic) and (which is a Greek form of a Hebrew name). [6] The following Old Bulgar and Slavic names were recorded in Greek script: [7] Bore:s (Slavic ) Dristros E:ratae:s Isboulos Kroumesis Kroumos Malame:r (Slavic ) Negun Omourtag Oslabnas Ochsounos Persianos Poumir (this may be a Slavic name) Terbelis Tzepa [9] Tzuchos Touchos O:korse:s O:negabonae:s In this list, represents the Greek letter eta and epresents the Greek letter omega. We also found the following Old Bulgar names which were recorded in Cyrillic. We've transliterated them into the Roman alphabet. You can see the early Cyrillic alphabet and the standard transliterations for each letter at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Cyrillic_alphabet In this list, <'> represents the letter jeri^ ( represents an i-hacek), <"> represents the letter jeru^, and represents the letter . [7] Avitokhol" Bezme^r" Vinekh" Gostoun" name^stnik" ( is Slavic) Espererikh Irnik" Isperikh, kjz' Kormisosh, kjz' Kourt' Mostich' chr'roubylju (We believe is Slavic) OSTRO bogoin Sevar" Telets' Oumor" The word appears to be Slavic, related to Russian 'prince'. We also found a list of early Bulgarian rulers which dates from the 15th century. The text of this list and a translation can be found here: "Namelist of Bulgarian Rulers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namelist_of_Bulgarian_Rulers Some of the information here is clearly spurious, especially in the early listings, so we cannot recommend this as the best guide to early Bulgar names. We found a few examples of names of Old Bulgar tribes recorded in Greek: [8] Bou/lgareis Bou/lgaroi Ermiare:s Koubiaris Kurige:r Tzakarare:s In this list, the represents the Greek letter eta as above, and the / represents an acute accent over the previous letter. Most of the Old Bulgar names that we've found in context use either just a given name, or a given name combined with a title. In a Greek context, a descriptive byname such as meaning 'the Bulgar' seems plausible. We're not sure how, or even whether, the tribal names listed above were incorporated in Old Bulgar names. 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 Walraven van Nijmegen, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, Juliana de Luna, Ari Ansson, Eleyne de Comnocke, and Kolosvari Arpadne Julia. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 19 September 2006 -- References: [1] Browning, Robert, _Byzantium & Bulgaria: A comparative study across the early medieval frontier_ (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1975), pp. 29, 45. [2] ibid., p. 46. [3] These are all modern spellings according to ibid., p. 20. [4] ibid., pp. 46-48. [5] ibid., pp. 48, 50-51. [6] ibid., pp. 56-57. [7] Bes^evliev, Veselin, _Die Protobulgarischen Inschriften_, (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1963), pp. 337-338. [8] Bes^evliev, section 34. [9] We're not positive that this is a Bulgar name; it may be a Slavic form of .