ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3244
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3244
************************************

4 Jan 2007
From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael 

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked for help developing a name meaning 'Ladislas/Laszlo the
Bastard' in both Czech and Hungarian which would be appropriate for
the late 15th century.  Here is what we have found.

The standard Hungarian form of the name is <La/szlo/>, where the
slashes represent acute accents over both vowels, indicating that the
vowels are long.  In the 15th century, we find <Nemes lazlo> 1440,
<nagy lazlo> 1478, as well as many examples of the Latin form
<Ladislaus>. [1,12]  When Hungarian names are written in Hungarian (as
opposed to when they are written in Latin), the surname precedes the
given name, so in these two examples, <Nemes> and <nagy> are the
surnames, and <lazlo> the given name.  <Lazlo> is hence a fine choice
for a 15th century man.

In Hungarian, adjectival bynames were used, including many
uncomplimentary ones. [2]  In 1428 we find one <Stephano Fathyw>
(<Stephano> is an inflected Latin form); <Fathyw> is a medieval form
of the modern word <fattyu/> 'illegitimate offspring'. [5]  This word
had a fairly strong pejorative connotation, possibly even stronger
than the English word <bastard> does.  The spelling of this word
varied quite a bit during the Middle Ages.  Other examples that we
found include <fattyw> 1572, 1600, <fatthyu> 1600, <dict[us] Fotyu>
1374 'called Fotyu', <Fatthiopap> 1405 (<pap> is 'priest'). [6,7]  We
believe that <Fathyw> is as likely a spelling for your period as any.

We can therefore recommend <Fathyw Lazlo> as a fine name for a
15th-century Hungarian man.  This name would've been pronounced
roughly \FAWT-tyoo LAAHS-loe\, where \oo\ is the vowel in <cool>. [3]

Transcriptions of historical Czech documents have commonly been
normalized with changes in spelling to reflect modern Czech, so it is
often hard for us to say what form certain names would have taken in
your period.  However, medieval Czech spelling was similar to medieval
Polish, as the two only diverged near the end of the 16th century
[10], so we have drawn on information from a larger area than just
Bohemia.

<Ladislav> is an old Czech name which derives from the even older
spelling <Vladislav> [8,9] but unfortunately we do not know when
either of these spellings came into use.  Furthermore, while forms of
this name were popular in Hungary and Poland in our period, the name
appears to be much more rare in Bohemia.  We've therefore turned to
Polish to find possible spellings of the name for your period.  We
found the following: [11]

   Lasslaw     1396/7
   Laslaw      1419, 1425, 1482
   Laczslaw    1437, 1453
   Ladslaw     1444
   Lassla      1476
   Laslo       1486, 1488, 1496
   Laszlo      1494

<Ladislas> doesn't appear to have been used in either Czech or Polish,
and so we recommend that you don't use this spelling.

We weren't able to find any byname meaning 'bastard' in medieval Czech
or Polish, so we cannot recommend a wholly Czech form of your name. 
The most common types of bynames in medieval Bohemia are patronymic
(identifying the person's father), locative (identifying the place of
birth or residence), occupational (identifying the person's job), or
descriptive (usually a physical charcteristic).  We recommend
selecting a byname fitting one of these types.

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 Maridonna Benvenuti, Talan Gwynek, Kolosvari Arpadne
Julia, Walraven van Nijmegen, Ursula Georges, Adelaide de Beaumont,
and Coblaith Mhuimhneach.

For the Academy,
-Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 04 January 2007

--
References:

[1] Ka/zme/r Miklo/s, "Re/gi Magyar Csala/dnevek Szo/ta/ra: XIV-XVII 
Sza/zad" (Budapest, 1993), s.nn. Nagy, Nemes

[2] Ka/lma/n, Be/la, _The World of Names: A Study in Hungarian
Onomatology_ (Budapest: Akedemiai Kiado, 1978).

[3] A more precise representation of the pronunciation is ['fA.c:u:
'la:slo:], using ASCII IPA. [4]  A website with audio files of the IPA
alphabe can be found in [13].

[4] Blaheta, Don, "Representation of IPA with ASCII" (WWW: Blahedo.org).
http://www.blahedo.org/ascii-ipa.html

[5] Ka/zme/r, op. cit., s.n. Fattyu/

[6] Szabo/ T. Attila, _Erde/lyi Magyar Szo/to:rte/neti Ta/r_, vol.
III: Elt-Felzs (Kriterion, Bukarest, 1982), s.nn. fattyu/, fattyu/gyermek

[7] Szamota Istva/n & Zolnai Gyula, _Magyar Okleve/l-szo/ta/r_
(Budapest, 1902; facsimile reprint, 1984), s.n. fattyu/

[8] Schlimpert, Gerhard, _Slawische Personennamen in Mittelalterlichen
Quellen zur Deutschen Geschichte_ (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1978)

[9] Svoboda, Jan, _Staro{c^}eska/ Osobni/ Jme/na a Na{s^}e
P{r^}i/jmeni/_ (Praha, {C^}eskoslovenska/ Akademie Ve/d, 1964) p.184

[10] Academy of S. Gabriel Report #2458
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2458

[11] Taszycki, Witold (ed.), _S{l/}ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_
(Dictionary of Old Polish Personal Names), vols. I-VII (Wroc{l/}aw:
Zak{l/}ad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli{n'}skich, Polska Akademia Nauk,
1965-1987). s.nn. Laslo, W{l/}odzis{l/}aw, vol VI p.147 sxn A.4, p.148
sxn B.3

[12] Ka/zme/r, op. cit., sub N passim

[13] Dowse, Jonathan, "The International Phonetic Alphabet" (WWW:
Self-published, 2005-2006)
http://wso.williams.edu/~jdowse/ipa.html