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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked for our opinion of the name "Lynn du Drac" as a 16th century French name.
Before I start, I'd like to point out just what services the Academy does and doesn't offer. Our focus is helping our clients to choose and use names which are historically appropriate for the cultures they wish to re-create. In the process of advising you on historical naming, we will provide information which could be used as documentation for registering your name, but this is not our primary purpose.
Unfortunately, our references on late-period French names are not as good as we'd like. You can find one article on 16th century French names on the web at
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/cateline/norman16.html
With those preliminary comments, here's what we've found.
"Lynn" is a modern English and American name, probably first used as a nickname for "Linda" or "Linnet" in the 20th century [1, 2]. As best we can determine, "Lynn" did not exist in our period and would not have been used as a nickname for any period name. There are a number of period French names which sound very similar, and one of them may suit you.
A 13th century census of Paris records the name "Lyonette" [3]. The masculine forms "Lyon" or "Lion" survived to the 15th century [7] and eventually produced the modern name "Léon", so we think the feminine form is very likely to have existed in France in your period.
"Linnet" or "Lynnette" are French names first used in the 12th or 13th century [1]. We don't have evidence that either survived to the 16th century.
A few similar names are recorded in English documents: "Lina" (c.1200), "Lena" (1275), "Linota" (1279), "Lyna" (1350) [4, 5]. Any of these names could well have survived to the 16th century, though they do not appear in our references. "Lina" is a pet name for names ending in "-lina", like "Adelina" and "Emelina". In all of these namem the first vowel should be pronounced "ee".
You asked if "Lynn" could derive from French names like "Evelynne" or "Jaqueline". We examined that possibility, and we concluded that it is very unlikely.
"Evelynne" is more commonly spelled "Evelyn". This is not a French name; it is an English form of the Norman name "Avelina". In French, the last half of "Avelina" is pronounced "LEEN-a", so it could not have produced a short form pronounced like "Lynn".
"Jaqueline" is recorded in France as early as 1292 [3] and persisted in various forms until modern times. The last part of this name is pronounced "LEEN" or "LEEN-a", so it also could not have been abbreviated "Lynn". Another similar name, "Jacquelle", is recorded in the 16th century in Rouen [6].
You told us that you intended your surname "du Drac" to mean "the dragon". It doesn't mean that: "Drac" is not a French or English word, and "du" means "of the" or "from the". The French for "the dragon" is "le dragon", but this is not a very likely surname for a 16th century Frenchwoman. By the 16th century, the French were using inherited surnames rather than personal descriptives. "Dragon" on its own is a possible surname for your period. Alternatively, you might choose a surname which looks similar to "du Drac", like "de Dracy".
A name like "Lynnette Dragon" is quite plausible for your period. The surname "Dragon" has several origins. Your persona's ancestor, one or two centuries earlier, might have adopted it for a specific meaning. By the 16th century, though, you would have inherited the name from your father and any knowledge of the original meaning would very probably have been lost. "Dragon" could have originally been a descriptive nickname, or it might have been used by someone who played the part of the dragon in a pageant, or it could have derived from the given name "Dragon" or "Dragonet", which was not uncommon in southern France in the later Middle Ages [8].
Many French surnames of your period were derived from place names. There are French towns called "Dracé" (pronounced dra-SAY), "Draché" (dra-SHAY), and "Dracy" (dra-SEE) [9]. [The / represents a sharp accent over the preceding vowel.] Surnames based on place names were originally used with the preposition "de" 'of', but by the 16th century some families had dropped the preposition [6]. You could use a surname based on any of these place names, with or without the preposition "de". For example, either "Lyonette de Dracy" or "Linnet Dracé" would be a reasonable name for your period.
In summary: We are fairly certainly that "Lynn" was not used as a given name in period and that it could not have been a diminutive form of a French name. We suggest you consider "Lynnette" or "Lyonette" instead. The surname "du Drac" is not correct French; we suggest "Dragon", "de Dracy", "Dracé", etc.
I hope this letter has been helpful. If you have any further questions about your name or arms, please contact us again. Talan Gwynek, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, and Alan Fairfax contributed to this letter.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
References
[1] E.G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3rd
ed. (Oxford University Press)
[2] Leslie Dunkling and William Gosling, The New American Dictionary of
First Names (Signet Books, 1983)
[3] Colm Dubh, An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris,
Known World Heraldic Symposium, June 22-23, 1996, Montgomery, Alabama
[4] P. H. Reaney & R. M. Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames (Oxford
University Press, 1995)
[5] Charles Bardsley, A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames
(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980)
[6] Cateline de la Mor, Sixteenth Century Norman Names
(SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; re-published 1997 by Arval Benicoeur, <URL: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/cateline/norman16.html>)
[7] Luana de Grood, Flemish Given Names from Bruges, 1400-1600,
(Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996,
<URL:http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/bruges/>)
[8] Albert Dauzat, "Dictionnaire Etymologique des noms de Familles et des
prenoms de France" (Paris: Larousse, 1987)
[9] Dauzat and Rostaing, Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Lieux de la
France (Paris, 1963)