ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3370 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3370 ************************************ 11 Jan 2010 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us to evaluate the plausibility of as the name of a woman living in Ireland, possibly in the north, in the early to middle 9th century C.E. Throughout this letter, a slash represents an acute accent over the letter it follows. You mentioned that you've been pronouncing the name \TOO-@-l@ ingen wee Brennan\, and asked whether that pronunciation was appropriate to your period. You also mentioned that your husband's family name is and asked whether might have been used as a given name in the early to middle 12th century. was a fairly rare name; the only example that we've found is a queen of Leinster who died in 754. [1,2] We consider it a reasonable choice for your period, though it would be more clearly appropriate to the 8th century. Historically the name is a compound of 'people, tribe, nation' and 'ruler'. In compounds of this type the initial consonant of the second element underwent a change called lenition, which was a kind of phonetic 'softening'. In the case of this softening was extreme: the sound disappeared altogether. In the earliest texts this lenition of was frequently not indicated at all; in such a text the name might have been spelled . By the middle of the 9th century lenition of was commonly indicated by placing a dot, called a punctum delens, over the ; we'll represent that spelling by . [3] Finally, the silent letter was sometimes simply omitted, as in your spelling . We do not have enough firsthand experience with the very early sources to know just when this last treatment becomes common, or even when it first appears, so we recommend that you use or . The proposed would be a clan affiliation byname indicating membership in the Ua Bre/nainn clan. The correct spelling of this name has the accents placed a little differently; it should be . Because this type of byname was first used in the 10th century and didn't become common until the 11th, we can't recommend it for your period. [4] The simple patronymic ('daughter of Bre/nainn'), however, would be reasonably appropriate. We have evidence of the use of as a masculine given name as late as the year 770. [2] Again, while is better supported as an 8th-century name, it is not unreasonable to posit a woman living in the early 9th century whose father used it. would be pronounced roughly \TOO@th-l@th EEN-y@n BHRAY-n@n^\, where \@\ represents the sound of in and , \y\ the sound of in , \AY\ the sound of in and \n^\ the sound of in . The first \BH\ is a voiced bilabial fricative used in Spanish ('wolf') and ('grape'). It is the sound made by positioning your lips to say a \b\, but relaxing them slightly so that the air escapes. This sound does not occur in English; \V\ is the closest sound that does. The Gaelic form of used in the early 12th century is . The origins of the name are unclear. It may have begun with the use of the Old Irish 'noble, excellent, dignified' as a personal name, but no documented instances of such a usage have been found. We do, however, have evidence of the use of itself, as a byname, in your husband's period. [5, 6, 7] I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Brian Dorcha ua Connail, Bronwyn ferch Gwyn ap Rhys, Juliana de Luna, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, and Ursula Georges. For the Academy, Coblaith Muimnech and Gunnvor silfraharr 06 January 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------- [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). s.n. Tuathflaith [2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 2000-2004). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/ mari/AnnalsIndex/ [3] The punctum delens was adapted from Latin scribal practice, in which it was used to mark a letter written by mistake that was to be mentally deleted by the reader. Its use to indicate the silent lenited of Old Irish was a natural extension of this practice. [4] Krossa, Sharon L., "Quick and Easy Gaelic Names (3rd Edition)" (WWW: Privately published, 22 Jun 2001). http:// www.MedievalScotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/. [5] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annals of Tigernach" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1996). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100002/ [6] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, & Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 2", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98), entries M903-M1171. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005B/. [7] 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) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/ published/G100010B/.