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, . Here is what we have found. The modern given name was originally a surname. This surname has two derivations. One is from any of various places called , such as Kelly near Arbroath or Kellie in Fife, or Kelly in Devon. The other is from the Irish clan byname (where the slash represents an acute accent over the previous letter). [1] The root of the clan byname is the masculine name . was also used as a feminine name, but only in the very early period, when it was spelled rather than . We have two examples of used as a feminine name, in 726 and 732. [2] In the 8th century, was pronounced roughly \K^EL-l@kh\, where \K^\ represents a combination of \K\ with the \y\ sound in , as at the beginning of the word , \@\ is the sound of in or , and \kh\ stands for sound of in Scottish or German . Because our only examples of 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 . These are the compound names 1042, 1163, and in 1211 and again in the late 16th or early 17th century. [2,4] The element 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: \KAHL^-l^@kh IN^-n^ayn^\ \KAHL^-l^@kh GHOHBH~-n@l^\ , the sound of in French and Italian and \n^\ is the sound of in , of in Spanish 'mister', and in French 'mountain' and Italian . \GH\ is the voiced version of \KH\, used earlier, and \BH~\ is the nasalized version of the \v\-like sound of the in Spanish . 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 is English, meaning 'son of Jack'. [1] We cannot offer any Irish byname which sounds like , but we can offer one with a similar meaning. The French name (which has the same root name as English , while is a nickname of ) was adopted into Gaelic as or in the 13th century and continued in use through the 16th century. [2] A woman who was the daughter of a man named could have been known as , , or (the change in spelling following is a result of requirements of Gaelic grammar). [2] The word was pronounced roughly \EEN-y@n\, and both and were roughly \HEE@-k@-s@\. 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 in this same data set [3], so a name like 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