ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3200 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3200 ************************************ 22 Oct 2006 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an authentic given name for a woman living in either England or France between 1100 and 1500. Here is what we have found. The name appears to be rather uncommon in England during your period, but we found examples of the spelling in 1289 and 1302. [1,4,6] An early 16th century English text spells the name , in reference to the daughter of the king of Sicily. [2] would have been pronounced roughly \yoh-LAHNT\ during this period. In France, the earliest examples of that we've found is in 1292. [5] We also found examples of from 1483, 1563, and 1601; however, our source for these modernized the spellings of the given names, and so we cannot say whether this spelling is appropriate for your desired period. [3] , however, is a plausible alternative spelling of ; both and would also have been pronounced \yoh-LAHNT\. If you would like to chose a suitable byname to use with one of these forms of , we recommend that you look at the articles we have available here: Medieval Names Archive: English Names http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/english.shtml Medieval Names Archive: French Names http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/french.shtml If you find a byname which interests you, please don't hesitate to write us again for more information about it. We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Kolosvari Arpadne Julia, Adelaide de Beaumont, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, and Maridonna Benvenuti. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 22 October 2006 -- References: [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), s.n. Yolande [2] Furnivall, Frederick James, _The Three Kings' Sons. Part I. The Text_ (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tru"bner & Co., 1895) http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ThreeKSon [3] Uckelman, Sara L., "Late Period French Feminine Names" (WWW: Self-published, 2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/latefrench.html [4] Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/reaney/ [5] 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 [6] Source [1] notes that this was also recorded as in 1346. It's not clear whether is a variant of , or whether it is a distinct name.