ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3336 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3336 ************************************ 9 Jul 2007 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if 'crafty Cormac' is an authentic name for a 16th century Irish Gaelic man. Here is what we have found. is an excellent choice for your given name. It was one of the most popular men's names through the Middle Ages, and we have a number of 16th century citations for it, in 1503, 1523, 1531, 1532, 1533, 1554, 1586, and 1589. [1] The word was used as both an adjective and a noun. As an adjective, its meaning is much closer to 'treacherous, fraudulent; bewitching, pleasant'. When used as a noun, its primary meaning was 'deceitful person'. appears to be a confusion of , the Early Modern Irish form, with , the Old and Middle Irish form. The word means 'shameful, disgraceful; deceitful', and it is derived from 'a cause of shame, disgrace; deceit, guile, treachery'. [2,3] The translation of 'crafty' doesn't seem to be the best choice, as it doesn't reflect the rather derogatory nature of the word. We have evidence that this word was used as a descriptive byname in the 14th century. In one of the Irish Annals, we find references to in 1348, and in another he is mentioned as in 1356. [4,5,6] (Both of these annals use rather archaic spelling systems, which explains why the word is recorded as instead of the expected .) We also have evidence that the word was used, in the senses of 'treacherous' and 'deceitful', in the 16th century. [7,8] While we do not have any 16th century examples of used as a byname, it's certainly not unreasonable. We should stress, however, that it doesn't appear to have as its primary meaning the meaning you desire. We also found a derivative word , where the slash represents an acute accent over the previous letter. This word does have the meaning of 'crafty person', but we are not sure how common this word was or whether it is a plausible byname. [9] We therefore cannot recommend it as good re-creation. 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 Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn Brian, and Brian dorcha ua Chonnaill. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 09 July 2007 -- References: [1] 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/ [2] Dinneen, Patrick S. _Foclo/ir Gaedhilge agus Be/arla_ (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1979 [1927]), s.v. meblach. [3] Around c. 1200 Gaelic spelling went under widespread revision; during the period from then to c. 1700, the language is called Early Modern Irish; Early Irish covers both Old Irish (c. 700 - c. 900) and Middle Irish (c. 900 - c. 1200) [4] Royal Irish Academy, _Dictionary of the Irish Language: based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials_ (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1983), s.v. meblach. [5] Fa"rber, Beatrix et al. (CELT team) ed., "Annals of Loch Ce/ A.D.1014-1590" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2003), entry LC1348.2. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100010B/. [6] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annala Uladh: Annals of Ulster otherwise Annala Senait, Annals of Senat" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2003), entry U1356.6. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100001B/ [7] Cournane, Mavis & Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, ed., "Annals of the Four Masters, Volume 5" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1998), entry M1542.14. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005E/. [8] Fa"rber et al, op. cit., entry LC1535.3. [9] Dinneen, op. cit., s.v. meabhlacha/n.