ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3171 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3171 ************************************ From: "Lisa and Ken Theriot" 19 Feb 2008 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us on behalf of your boyfriend about a name appropriate for a Romanian man sometime before 1600; specifically, you wondered whether would be appropriate, and whether a form of the name could be incorporated as well. Here is the information we have found. We apologize for the time this report has taken, and hope the information is still of use to you. First, we'd like to address some historical issues regarding your culture; then we'll discuss your name elements. Portions of modern-day Romania have been under Hungarian rule (as well as that of many other outsiders) during various periods. Prior to 1600, there was no real Romania; there were regions known as Moldavia (eastern third of modern Romania) and Wallachia (southern third). Moldavia was more-or-less still independent; Wallachia was organized in 1280 as a "land of the Vlachs" (from which the name derives), but as a Hungarian province. The region bounced back and forth between being tightly under Hungarian control to being a virtually independent state until it became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire (beginning in 1390, but not fully until 1476). Moldavia was organized independently as another Vlach state in the 13th century. It became a vassal state to Poland in 1387. Ottoman influence began in 1455, but Moldavia did not fall under total Ottoman dominion until 1512 [1]. Transylvania, the third state that would later form part of modern Romania, was similarly under Hungarian control from about 1200 until the 16th century, when it became a semi-independent region alternately controlled by the Austrian Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire over the next two centuries [2]. Forms of the name , most often borrowed from the Latin , are common in most pre-1600 European cultures. Each culture, though, tends to have its own particular form. We have not found the exact spelling before modern times. It appears most similar to the modern Polish form [3]. Moldavia was under Polish rule for a time, so it wouldn't surprise us to find a Polish-influenced spelling during that time, perhaps similar to the forms we find recorded in medieval Silesia, where we find recorded in 1351 and 1381, and in 1383 [4]. The common Hungarian form is , pronounced roughly \YAH-noash\, where \ah\ is like saying "ah" in the doctor's office and \oa\ is pronounced as in ; it was the most popular masculine name in the 15th and 16th centuries [5, 12]. (Since most records prior to that time were kept in Latin, we typically find the common Latin form .) The most common Romanian form is , which we find frequently in the 16th century [6]. It is pronounced roughly \ywahn\. We also find the following variant forms which are closer in sound to the form you suggested [7]: Ioane{s,}, undated, roughly \YWAH-nesh\. Oane{s,}, 1591-1600, roughly \WAH-nesh\. Ioan{a^}{s,}, undated, roughly \YWAH-n@sh\. (Here {s,} represents the Romanian character s-with-comma used for the sound \sh\, {a^} is a Romanian a-breve, and @ represents the sound of in the word .) Since you have chosen other name elements which are particularly Romanian, we believe that a Romanian spelling of is the best recreation. If your name were recorded in another language, it would be greatly altered in spelling and possibly in word order [8]. Consider the case of John Hunyadi, a Transylvanian nobleman who was regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1446-1453. His name appears variously as in Latin, in German, in Hungarian, and or in Romanian [9]. (Hunedoara is in the Transylvania region of Romania; it was once part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and its Hungarian name is .) was a popular name from at least the 14th century in Wallachia, and later in Moldavia [6]. The name is of Slavic origin, originally from a name like or . We find the patronymic form recorded in 1483 [10]. A patronymic byname is based on the name of your father; a man named or whose father was named might be known in Romanian records as or . The name literally means 'the Vlad-ish' but is generally used to identify your father, composed of the common name and the grammatical ending <-escu> [6, 10]. is a fine Romanian man's name. We note you are spelling with an extra at the end: . This is incorrect. The basic suffix form is actually <-esc> 'like'. The <-u> comes from the suffixed definite article <-ul> 'the'; however, in speech, the final in <-escul> is not pronounced, so it was dropped from spelling as well. We therefore don't believe the spelling with a terminal is likely in any Romanian context [11]. We find records from the Royal line of Moldavia and Wallachia in which a person is recorded with two bynames, but one of the bynames is typically an epithet like 'the tyrant' or a locative like 'from Craiova'. We have not found examples of double given names or double patronymics, so we don't believe either with two given names or with two patronymics is plausible for your culture, but , , and are all fine names. We would be somewhat surprised to find a Polish influenced spelling like or a Hungarian influenced spelling like combined with either or . We hope this letter has been useful to you, and that you won't hesitate to write us again with any further questions. I was assisted in writing and researching this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Arval Benicoeur, Kolosvari Arpadne Julia, Leonor Martin, Talan Gwynek, and Walraven van Nijmegen. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 19 February 2008 References: [1] Magocsi, Robert Paul, _Historical Atlas of East Central Europe_, Vol. I (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, paperback 1995), p. 30. [2] "Transylvania" (WWW: Wikipedia.org). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania [3] Walraven van Nijmegen and Arval Benicoeur, _Polish Given names in Nazwiska Polako/w_ (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/walraven/polish/ [4] Talan Gwynek, "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia", revised edition (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/bahlow/ [5] Walraven van Nijmegen, "Hungarian Personal Names of the 16th Century" (WWW: privately published, 1997). http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1336/magyar16.html [6] Uckelman, Sara L. "Names from the Royal Lines of Moldavia and Wallachia" (WWW: Self-published, 2000, 2005-2006). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/other/romanian.html [7] Constantinescu, N. A. _Dic{t,}ionar Onomastic Rom{i^}nesc_ (Bucure{s,}ti: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Rom{i^}ne, 1963), s.n. Ioan, p. 80-85. [8] Kolosvari Arpadne Julia: "And the Last Shall Be First: The connection between language and name order in Hungarian names" (in: Known World Heraldic Symposium Proceedings, York, PA: 2004); p. 21. [9] "John Hunyadi" (WWW: Wikipedia.org). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi [10] Constantinescu, s.n. Radu, p. 355-357, s.n. Vlad, p. 408. [11] Cojocaru, Dana, "Romanian Grammar" (WWW: Slavic and East European Language Resource Center, 2003). http://www.seelrc.org/projects/grammars.ptml http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/stand_alone_romanian.pdf [12] Szamota Istva/n & Zolnai Gyula, _Magyar okleve/l-szo/ta/r_ (Hungarian Manuscript-Dictionary). Budapest, 1902-1906; facsimile reprint: A/llami Ko:nyvterjeszto" Va/llalat, Budapest, 1984, s.n. Ja/nos, p. 425.