ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3299
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3299
************************************

4 Apr 2007
From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You wanted to know if we could recommend a 14th century Irish feminine
name that is similar to your wife's modern name, <Kelly Jackson>. 
Here is what we have found.

The modern given name <Kelly> was originally a surname.  This surname
has two derivations.  One is from any of various places called
<Kelly>, such as Kelly near Arbroath or Kellie in Fife, or Kelly in
Devon.  The other is from the Irish clan byname <O/ Ceallaigh> (where
the slash represents an acute accent over the previous letter). [1] 
The root of the clan byname <O/ Ceallaigh> is the masculine name
<Ceallach>.  <Ceallach> was also used as a feminine name, but only in
the very early period, when it was spelled <Cellach> rather than
<Ceallach>.  We have two examples of <Cellach> used as a feminine
name, in 726 and 732. [2]  In the 8th century, <Cellach> was
pronounced roughly \K^EL-l@kh\, where \K^\ represents a combination of
\K\ with the \y\ sound in <yet>, as at the beginning of the word
<cute>, \@\ is the sound of <a> in <soda> or <about>, and \kh\ stands
for sound of <ch> in Scottish <loch> or German <Bach>.

Because our only examples of <Cellach> used by women come from the 8th
century, this is not a good choice for a 14th-century woman.  We can
offer a few alternatives which are a bit closer to the 14th century,
though they look and sound less like <Kelly>.  These are the compound
names <Caillech Fhinne/in> 1042, <Caillech Domnaill> 1163, and
<Cailleach Dhe/> in 1211 and again in the late 16th or early 17th
century. [2,4]  The element <Caillech> means 'nun', so these names are
compounds meaning 'nun of St Finnen', 'nun of St Domnaill', and 'nun
of God', respectively.  This type of given name is called a devotional
given name.  The names are pronounced roughly as follows:

  <Caillech Fhinne/in>   \KAHL^-l^@kh IN^-n^ayn^\
  <Caillech Domnaill>    \KAHL^-l^@kh GHOHBH~-n@l^\
  <Cailleach Dhe/        \KAHL^-l^@kh GHAY\

Here, \L^\ represents a palatalized <l>, the sound of <lli> in French
<million> and Italian <degli> and \n^\ is the sound of <ny> in
<nyah-nyah>, of <n-tilde> in Spanish <sen~or> 'mister', and <gn> in
French <montagne> 'mountain' and Italian <lasagna>.  \GH\ is the
voiced version of \KH\, used earlier, and \BH~\ is the nasalized
version of the \v\-like sound of the <b> in Spanish <lobo>.  That
sound is made by positioning the lips to make a \b\ and relaxing them
so that they can vibrate against one another.  To nasalize it, allow
some of the sound to come out through your nose.

The surname <Jackson> is English, meaning 'son of Jack'. [1]  We
cannot offer any Irish byname which sounds like <Jackson>, but we can
offer one with a similar meaning.  The French name <Jacques> (which
has the same root name as English <James>, while <Jack> is a nickname
of <John>) was adopted into Gaelic as <Siacas> or <Siacus> in the 13th
century and continued in use through the 16th century. [2]  A woman
who was the daughter of a man named <Siacas> could have been known as
<inghean Shiacasa>, <inghean Shiacusa>, or <inghean Shiacais> (the
change in spelling following <inghean> is a result of requirements of
Gaelic grammar). [2]  The word <inghean> was pronounced roughly
\EEN-y@n\, and both <Shiacasa> and <Shiacusa> were roughly
\HEE@-k@-s@\.  <Shiacais> was pronounced roughly \HEE@-k@sh\.

If the sound of the name is more important to your wife than time
period or location, then we have a few other suggestions.  In the Isle
of Man in the early 16th century, various devotional feminine names of
the type mentioned above were in use: [3]

  Calibrid    'nun of St. Brighid'
  Calycrist   'nun of Christ'
  Calyhony    'nun of Domhach (Sunday)'
  Calypatric  'nun of St. Patrick'
  Calyvorri   'nun of Mary'

We also find one example of the byname <Jakson> in this same data set
[3], so a name like <Calyhony Jakson> is a reasonable 16th century
Manx name.

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 Mari neyn Brian, Cobhlaith Mhuimhneach, Adelaide de
Beaumont, and Talan Gwynek.

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

--
References:

[1] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_
(London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.nn.
Jackson, Kelly

[2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW:
Academy of S. Gabriel, 2001-2006). 
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/mari/AnnalsIndex/

[3] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "Manx
Names in the Early 16th Century" (WWW: S. Krossa, 1998). 
http://www.MedievalScotland.org/manxnames/jonesmanx16.shtml

[4] Keating, Gefofrey, _Foras Feasa ar E/irinn_ (Book I-II), section
27.  (WWW: Corpus of Electronic Texts, no date).  Keating lived from
~1569 and ~1644.
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100054/text088.html