ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3386 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3386 ************************************ 11 Jan 2010 From: Gunnvor Silfraharr Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an authentic name for an Irish woman born c. 1250 or earlier, possibly from north-eastern Mayo, close to Roscommon. You said that you wanted your father's name to be an early form of , which you said that you selected in hopes it would sound similar to the name . Throughout this letter, we will represent a letter with an acute accent by placing a slash (/) after the letter. First, we'd like to apologize for the time this letter has taken; we hope the information is still of use to you. The Annals of Connacht notes a woman named who died in 1310. We can't be certain how old she was at the time of her death, but it's likely was born in the mid to late 13th C. [1] represents one Gaelic borrowing of names such as or , which was very popular among the Anglo-Normans. We have evidence that Gaels were adopting some Anglo-Norman names for their daughters during your period, including (1201-1250) and , , , and (1250-1300). [2] The name you selected for your father also is appropriate for your period. "Annals of the Four Masters" and "Annals of Loch Ce/" list a who died in 1224. [3, 4, 5] Spelling varied somewhat in the records of this period. We would expect to see this name as in a document that uses conservative orthography, such as the Annals of Connacht. In a document using more contemporary orthography of the 13th century, the name would more likely appear as . would be pronounced roughly \SHEE-bhahn EEN-y@n KHOHN CHAYN-n@n^\, where \bh\ is a voiced bilabial fricative used in Spanish ('wolf') and ('grape'). [6] It is the sound made by positioning your lips to say a \b\, but relaxing them slightly so that the air escapes between them with a buzzing sound. This sound does not occur in English; \V\ is the closest sound that does. The \@\ represents the sound of in and , \y\ is the sound of in , \AY\ is the sound of in , \CH\ is the softer German sound of , and \n^\ is the sound of in . We also wanted to mention that if you are interested in the actual name , this name occurs in the same period as as at least as early as we can support . [7, 8] The patronymic form of this name would be . 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 Talan Gwynek, Mari neyn Brian, Adelaide de Beaumont, Ursula Georges, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy,Gunnvor silfraharr 04 January 2010 REFERENCES [1] Cournane, Mavis, Vibeke Dijkman, and Ivonne Tummers, "Annals of Connacht" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997), entry 1310.15. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100011/. [2] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, "Index of Names in Irish Annals" (WWW: Medieval Scotland.org, 2000-2003). http://www.medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/ Specifically, see "Anglo-Norman Feminine Names" http://www.medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/Feminine/1201- 1600.shtml#Anglo-Norman [3] Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, op. cit. Specifically, see "Index of Names in Irish Annals: Cu/ Cenann" http://www.medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/Masculine/CuCenann.sht ml [4] Beechinor, Stephen, Beatrix Fa"rber, Daithi/ O/ Corra/in, ed., "Annals of the Four Masters, Volume 3" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2000), entry M1224.13. (Note that a" represents an a-umlaut.) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100005C/ [5] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh, ed., "Annals of Loch Ce/ A.D.1014-1590" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2002), entry LC1224.6. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100010A/text009.html [6] "Voiced Bilabial Fricative" (WWW: Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_fricative [7] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). s.n. . [8] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation), s.n. .