Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 327

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 327

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/327

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Later research turned up additional information relevant to this report. See the end of the letter for details.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on "Rita of Dragunath," which you wanted to use as a 10th-century Irish name. We've also included information on names from the 11th to 13th centuries.

Irish has changed significantly from the middle ages to the present. It makes sense to look in a modern dictionary, but since we have access to sources with medieval spellings, we've provided the medieval forms of the names you're looking for.

"Margaret" was introduced to Ireland by the Normans, who didn't come to Ireland until about 1200. It wasn't a popular name in Ireland until after 1400. It's possible that an Irish form of "Margaret" was used in Ireland from 1200 to 1400, but it was an unusual name during this time. Before 1200, we have no reason to believe that "Margaret" would have been an Irish name.

The spelling "Mairead" wasn't used until the modern era. In medieval Irish, we found the forms

(in these names, a slash indicates an accent so that "á" is an accented "a")

Any of these would be reasonable if you wanted a name from 1200 or later. "Rita" is a modern English diminuitive of "Margaret," not an Irish one. If you are more interested in having a 10th century name than in having a form of "Margaret", then we suggest you consult the book "Irish Names" by O'Corrain and Maguire (also published under the name "Gaelic Names"), the same book we used to get this information. It doesn't list dates, but it does give information about names and their origin. We can help clarify anything you're unsure about. If you can't find this book, give us some idea of what to look for and we'll see what 10th-century names we can find.

If you do want to use "Márgrég," we recommend that you use the full name "Márgrég inghen Dáibhídh," which means "Margaret, David's daughter." "Dáibhídh" is the Irish form of "David." ("Dafydd" is the Welsh form.) A large majority of Irish names are of this form, using "inghen" or "mac" and a single man's name.

"Traveller," in various languages, is much more common in the SCA than it was in the Middle Ages. It's an SCA cliche, and we discourage people from using it. However, there is a medieval Irish name "Taisteallach" which meant "traveller" or "person who likes to travel." You could include this in your name, to produce "Márgrég Taisteallach inghen Dáibhídh," but this would be a much less likely name that "Márgrég inghen Dáibhídh."

Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Arval D'Espas Nord, Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte, and Talan Gwynek assisted with this letter.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel


Correction, 18 Oct 2001, Arval: After a word ending in n, like inghean, the letter D does not lenite.