Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 435

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 435

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/435

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

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on your proposed Scottish name "Alun MacBryce."

You said that you were looking for "Alan" and that the spelling "Alun" was to make it different. "Alun" is a Welsh name which wasn't used in Scotland. The only spelling variant which was definitely used in Scotland is "Aleyn," which would be appropriate for a Scots-speaking persona.

It appears that "Bryce" was used as a Scots name but not a Gaelic one. We found many surnames based on this name, including in Scotland (2)

and in England (3)

From this evidence, it appears that "Bryson" is the later form of the name.

All this means that a name like "Aleyn Bryson" would be a completely reasonable name for a Scots-speaking person.

For your arms, we recommend using the blazon "Argent, three hounds' heads erased vert." Specific breeds of dogs (even those breeds which existed in period) aren't found in descriptions of arms until the modern era, so we used the generic "hound" instead.

Talan Gwynek, Madawc, Zenobia Naphtali, Rouland Carre, Elsbeth Anne Ross, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter.

We hope that this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel

(1) Black, G. "The Surnames of Scotland," under "Alan"

(2) ibid., under "Bryson"

(3) Reaney & Wilson, "Dictionary of English Surnames," under "Bryson"