ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3209 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3209 ************************************ From: Clare Baldock 12 Jan 2007 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You asked for our opinion on the name for an Irish woman living between 1200 and 1600. You say that you want to have a name indicating that you are a member of the clan Donald (rather than a name which indicates your father's name is ). Here is what we have found. The name you have chosen is a good one, with one small tweak to the spelling of . We shall discuss each part of your name, focussing in particular on the byname. We will recommend two suitable forms for your name and give rough pronunciations. is an Irish borrowing of the Old French name , which was introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans. Throughout this letter a '/' indicates an acute accent on the previous letter. Our earliest example of an Irish bearer of the name is a woman who died around 1360, so we cannot recommend it for the 13th century, but it seems to have been in continuous use from the 14th century on. The name appears in a variety of forms in period sources, including ; this spelling is suitable for the 15th and 16th centuries and probably for the 14th century as well. [1] An Irish woman was usually identified as her father's daughter, but she could also be identified as a member of a clan. In this case the usual name construction was . The word means 'daughter', and the byname as a whole means 'daughter of (a man belonging to) this clan'. (The genitive case is roughly comparable to the English possessive that turns , for instance, into . Lenition is a grammatical change, required in certain contexts, that affects the pronunciation of words beginning with a consonant; it has no real counterpart in English. We'll ignore the rather complex details except insofar as they affect the specific byname in which you're interested.) Irish clan names were most often formed with 'male descendant', in the plural ; this later became the familiar of modern Irish surnames. An , literally 'male descendant of Domnall', was a member of a clan , literally 'male descendants of Domnall'. Here is the genitive case of the masculine name . After about 1200 this name came to be spelled , with genitive case , and in due course became . Nevertheless, there are also many Irish clan names formed with 'son', one of which is ; indeed, there were at least two families of native Irish stock and a third that was introduced from Scotland in the 14th century. [2] We were even able to find an example of a woman recorded with this clan byname in an annal for the year 1544: . [3] We do not, however, recommend the spelling , but rather , a standardized scholarly spelling representing the most careful usage of your period. [4] ( is the lenited genitive form of .) The symbol represents a so-called tall ; this is a letter distinct from ordinary that is found in some Irish scripts and looks something like a lower-case without the crossbar. After 1200 is rendered as when using the standard Roman alphabet. In sum, is a fine name for the 15th and 16th centuries and probably for the 14th century as well. It was pronounced roughly \kah-t@-REE-n@ EEN-y@n v@k GHOHV-nahl^\, where \@\ stands for the sound of in and , and \OH\ stands for the vowel of the English word . \GH\ represents a sound similar to the \kh\ sound of in Scottish and German , but made with the vocal cords vibrating; it's related to \kh\ exactly as \g\ is related to \k\, \z\ to \s\, and \v\ to \f\. Finally, \l^\ stands for the sound of in the French word 'million' and of in Italian 'of the'. You also asked about the form for your byname, which was indeed much more common in your period. We found a number of women with this clan byname, one as early as the who appears in an annal for the year 1350 and others from the 15th and 16th centuries. [6] would also be a fine name for the same period; the only significant difference in pronunciation is that , pronounced roughly \wee\, replaces , pronounced roughly \v@k\. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write to us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Mari neyn Brian and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Eleyne de Comnocke 12 January 2007 [1] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" s.n. (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Caiterina.shtml [2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" s.nn. , , , (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/index.html [3] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" s.n (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/Mairghread. shtml [4] Medieval and Early Modern Irish spelling was of course not perfectly consistent, but it's possible to identify two main sets of spelling conventions; one is characteristic of the period up to about 1200, while the other dominates after 1200. Scholars have identified the conventions that are characteristic of the most careful writing of the two periods and used them to develop standardized spellings for both periods. These spellings are actually found, but so are non-standard forms, many of which show a mixture of early and late characteristics. Further complicating matters is the fact that much of our information about Irish naming comes from the various Irish annals. These are chronological listings, arranged by year, of historical (and often also legendary) events. They were compiled much later than many of the events that they record, often from older sources that no longer survive. For example, the Annals of the Four Masters were compiled between 1632 and 1636, but they cover events that occurred (or were supposed to have occurred) centuries and even millennia earlier. Some of the compilers seem to have been happy to substitute familiar spellings of their own period for those in their sources; others seem to have made an effort to preserve the older spellings, but they were not wholly successful. In general we find varying mixtures of earlier and later spelling conventions. In particular, a spelling found in an annal for the year 1153, say, need not be characteristic either of 12th century spellings or of the spelling of the period in which the manuscript was compiled. Lacking detailed information on the normal range of variation in non-annals sources, we think it safest to use the standardized spellings. [5] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation) s.n. [6] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" s.nn. , , , (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/all.html