ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3371 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3371 ************************************ 28 Dec 2009 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of St Gabriel! You asked our help in determining whether the name <Griogair Dubhglas> would be an authentic name for a Scottish man living before 1600, although you did not specify a time period. BACKGROUND Before we discuss your name, however, we need to give you some background information on the languages and cultures of Scotland, as this will affect what types of names are appropriate for which time periods. Scotland has a complex cultural and linguistic history. Starting around the 14th century, the two main languages spoken here were Gaelic, spoken in the Highlands and Western Isles, and Scots, spoken in the Lowlands, including the royal court and towns. The Northern Isles were the main exception: they were under Scandinavian control until the mid-15th century, and the local Norse dialect, called Norn, continued to be spoken (alongside Scots) through the 16th century. The Gaelic dialects of Scotland were part of a larger range of very closely related dialects spoken throughout Ireland, the Western Isles and the Highlands. Between about 1200 and 1700 these dialects shared a common literary standard referred to as Early Modern Irish or Common Classical Gaelic. These terms are also used to denote the dialects collectively, and their speakers can still be regarded as a single linguistic community in this period. Thus, we can look to the much more copious Irish material for information on Scottish Gaelic. Some caution is needed, however, because the dialects of Scotland and Ireland had already begun to diverge by the beginning of this period and would continue to do so through the period. Moreover, the naming practices in Gaelic-speaking Scotland were not identical to those in Ireland. Scots, on the other hand, was very closely related to the contemporary dialects of English and therefore very different from Gaelic. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the Scots and Gaelic language communities had different naming practices. These differences extended to the pool of names from which they drew. Although each borrowed and adapted some names from the other, the name pools of Gaelic and Scots remained largely distinct. What this means in practice is that your choice of culture determines not only what kind of names are possible and how they should look, but also, to a considerable extent, what name elements are possible. Unfortunately, the combination <Griogair Dubhglas> is impossible in either culture. We'll explain why this is so, what kinds of changes are needed to make it authentic, and what other kinds would allow you to use at least part of it as it stands. The powerful Douglas family of Scotland, though today known as "Clan Douglas", was an Anglo-Norman family. They were not Gaelic-speakers, and they did not use Gaelic names or write their names in Gaelic before 1600. <Dubhglas> is a misspelling of <Du\bhghlas> [1], the modern Scottish Gaelic form of <Douglas>, which was originally a non-Gaelic place-name. With rare exceptions, however, the Gaels in our period did not use locative bynames (i.e., bynames that name or describe a place), and this exception does not apply here. Thus, even correcting the spelling cannot make <Dubhglas> an authentic surname: it would be a Gaelic-language surname of a type not used by Gaels. In the Scots-speaking communities, however, locative surnames were common, including <Douglas>. In particular, we have numerous examples of Scots forms of this surname at different times. <Dwglass> 1399 [2] <Douglase> 1429 [2] <Dovglas> 1499 [2] <Douglace> 1504 [3] <Dowglace> 1511 [2] <Dougles> 1529 and 1538 [4] <Douglas> 1540 [5] <Dowgles> 1546 [6] Any of these could be combined with a Scots given name of the appropriate vintage to produce a fine Scottish name, but <Griogair> is Gaelic, not Scots, and as such is not appropriate with any form of the surname. The Scottish Gaelic <Griogair>, like its English counterpart <Gregory>, goes back to the Latin name <Gregorius>, which first came to the British Isles with Christianity. However, derivatives of <Gregorius> didn't become at all common in England or Scotland until the Normans introduced the Old French <Gregoire>, and our information on Scots forms is later yet: most of our information on Scots forms of the name comes from the 16th century. At that point we find <Gregor> (1549) and <Gregour> (1552 and 1565) for the given name, and <Grigour> (1589) and <Gregour> (1598) for the corresponding surname. [7, 8] It is very likely that the same range of spellings was used for the given name and the surname, so <Grigour> is almost certainly also a possible 16th century spelling of the given name. In particular, any combination of <Gregour>, <Gregor>, or <Grigour> with a 16th century form of <Douglas> should result in an authentic 16th century Scots name. <Gregour Dowglace> is one excellent combination. Gaelic <Griogair> was in use before 1600. One of the few extant pre- 17th century Scottish Gaelic sources is a 15th century manuscript that mentions a <Grigair> who lived in the 14th century. [8] <Griogair> is a standardized form of this documentary spelling that conforms to the most careful scribal practice of the same period. Thus, it is entirely possible to form an authentic pre-17th century Scottish Gaelic name using the specific form <Griogair> for the given name, provided that it's combined with an authentic Gaelic byname. As we've said, this rules out bynames based on place names, and hence any form of <Douglas>. But what does it allow? With vanishingly few exceptions, the Gaels used two types of bynames. The primary type, used at least occasionally by virtually all Gaels, was the patronymic, a byname that identifies its bearer in terms of his or her father. For example, a Gael named <Griogair> whose father was also named <Griogair> would have been <Griogair mac Griogair>; if his father's name was <Dubhghall>, our Gael would have been <Griogair mac Dubhghaill>, and if his father's name was <Donnchadh>, he would have been <Griogair mac Donnchaidh> or <Griogair mac Donnchadh>, depending on the specific local dialect (the changes from <Dubhghall> to <Dubhghaill> and from <Donnchadh> to <Donnchaidh> or <Donnchadha> are required by Gaelic grammar and are analogous to changing the English <John> to <John's> to form the possessive). The other type of Gaelic byname is the simple descriptive adjective, like <mo/r> 'big', <dubh> 'black', or <o/g> 'young'. <Griogair Dubh>, 'Black Gregor', is a full example of this kind of name. It is also possible to combine the two types of byname into a single name, as in <Griogair Dubh mac Griogair> 'Black Gregor son of Gregor'. If you would like to look at some possible Gaelic bynames for a man living in Scotland, look at the following articles: Sharon Krossa, "Quick and Easy Gaelic Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/ Sharon Krossa, "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.sht ml I hope that this letter has been useful. Please feel free to write us again if any part of it is unclear or if you have any other questions. I was assisted by Adelaide de Beaumont, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Coblaith Mhuimhneach, Eleyne de Comnocke, Juliana de Luna, Leonor Ruiz de Lison, Lillia da Vaux, Margaret Makafee, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Ursula Georges, and Gunvor silfraharr in writing this letter. For the Academy, Bronwyn ferch Gwyn ap Rhys December 28, 2009 NOTES AND REFERENCES [1] When you see a backslash after a letter in this missive, it stands for an accent grave over the previous letter; whereas a slash represents an accent acute. [2] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986). son. <Douglas> This includes entries dated 1399, 1429, 1499, 1504, 1511, and 1529 [3] "Dictionary of the Old Scots Tongue", Dictionary of the Scots Language (WWW: Scottish Language Dictionaries, n.d.). http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ s.v. abusive. [4] Ibid., s.v. a (v.) "That y sould a spolkyn with: ... Dougles" [5] Ibid., s.v. "auchtand" [6] Ibid., s.v. "almery." [7] Black, op. cit., s.nn <Gregory>, <Gregor>, <Grim>. [8] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995). s.n <Gregor>.