Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 503

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 503

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/503

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 have on your proposed Byzantine name, "Kassia Safia of Trebizond."

The information we have comes from an article on Byzantine names by Bardas Xiphias. The article can be found at

http://sdcc8.ucsd.edu/~rinman/byz_names/introduction.html

Your documentation for "Kassia" seems reasonable.

Your persona story is quite reasonable--the Crusaders drove the Byzantines out of Trebizond and many people fled to Constantinople. However, we have no examples of people who mixed Byzantine and Turkish names. Greek-and Turkish-speaking people have been at war since their first contact, and people did not have mixed cultural identity. Your persona can be Byzantine or Turkish, but not both.

If you want a Byzantine persona, your documentation of "Kassia" as the name of a 9th-century nun is reasonable. Many names were used exclusively by monks and nuns, but given that we don't have too much information about Byzantine names, your example is sufficient.

Most Byzantine women from your period were identified with the name of their husband's family. Some also used the name of their father's family, or the family names of other ancestors. The article we mentioned lists the following family names (all modified to the feminine form):

If you want an Arabic name, you can use any of the names from the list by Da'ud ibn Auda. Childless women were often known as "ibn <father's

name>" and women with children were usually called "umm <child's
name>." You could use these elements to construct an Arabic name.

Pedro de Alcazar and Arval Benicouer contributed to this letter.

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

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel