Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 355

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 355

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/355

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's what we found out about the name "Elric."

You were looking for information on Elric as a German name, and we did find it.

We found a North German "Elrich von Wesenberg" from 1372. The name, derived from an older Germanic name "Agilrich", was not common, and there is some evidence to suggest that it was primarily a northern form. We did not find the variant "Elric", but on the evidence of similar names it is a perfectly reasonable one for the region around the North Sea, roughly northern Germany and the Netherlands. It appears that it would be out of place in the dialects of south and central Germany, however.

We also found "Elric" in English, where it is a late Old English and Middle English form of several Old English names, most commonly "A{dh}elric". ({dh} represents the letter "edh," a character from Old English which sounds like "th" in "that.") It is unrelated to the German name. In German, the name "Ulrich" is much more common, and spread to a variety of other European languages. There is a North German variant Olrik which dates to about 1500.

Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmege, Arval Benicouer, Lindorm Eriksson, Hartmann Rogge, Zenobia Naphtali, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel