ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3176 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3176 ************************************ 17 Sep 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a French woman living between 1300 and 1450. You also asked whether this name is registerable. The Academy doesn't determine whether a name is registerable, but whether it's appropriate for your specific period. The SCA has fairly lenient rules for passing names, so it's possible to pass many names which aren't historically accurate. If having this name is more important to you than having a historical name, then you should consult another group (such as the heralds in your kingdom or the SCA heralds mailing list at SCAHRLDS@lists.aol.com) to find out whether your name will pass. We were unable to find any French forms of (either masculine or feminine) which dropped the , so we cannot recommend as an appropriate name for your period. We found one example of the name in Paris in 1292; during your period, the spelling , with two 's in the ending, is also appropriate. [1,2] The byname is not grammatically correct; the preposition elides only before vowels. We also don't recommend the spelling for your period. In a French document from 1415, the city is called , and in Froissart's Chroniques from the 15th-century, the city is spelled and , with being more common. [3,4] We therefore recommend either or . Both and would have been pronounced roughly \toh-mah-SET-t@ d@ har-FLO"\ in your period. Here, \@\ stands for the sound of in or , and \O"\ is the sound of German o-umlaut as in 'Hell' or in French 'people'. More precisely, it is the vowel you get by pronouncing the in with your lips positioned to pronounce as in . 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 you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Juliana de Luna, Ines Alfon, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Ari Ansson. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 17 September 2006 -- References: [1] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.html [2] Friedemann, Sara L., "French Names from Paris, 1421, 1423 & 1438" (WWW: privately published, 2002-2003). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/paris1423.html [3] Batzarov, Zdravko ed., _Un Manuel de conversation franc,aise pour voyageurs anglais_ (WWW: Orbus Latinus, no date) http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/French/Texts/Period_03/1415-Un_Manuel_de_conversation.html [4] Sanderson, Robert, ed., "Appendix A: Edited Text of M804" (Ph.D thesis, 2003; WWW: self-published, no date) http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~azaroth/papers/transcript.pdf