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Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!
You asked about a 6th century Visigothic version of the name Roderick. You also asked what sort of byname a 6th century Visigoth would have used, if any.
Forms of this name were used in a number of Germanic languages, including Visigothic. Unfortunately, records of early Germanic names are a bit scanty. We were able to find 8th century citations in the forms <Hrodericus>, <Hroderih>, <Ruadirih>, <Ruadrig>, <Rotricus>, <Rodericus>, but these are from areas where specific Visigothic influence is unlikely. [1] Records of Visigothic names are even scarcer. The earliest we could find for this one were 9th century Hispano-Gothic citations from the Iberian peninsula: <Roderico> 812, <Rodrigo> 837, <Rudericus> 841, and <Rudrico> 873. [2]
The problem of finding a genuine early form is compounded by the fact that most early examples have been Latinized to some degree. <Rodericus> and <Rudericus> seem to have become fairly standard Latinizations at quite an early date. Either would probably be appropriate if you were writing your name in a Latin context, though a less thorough Latinization like <Hrodericus> would also be appropriate. We are not certain what a 6th century version would have looked like without Latinization, but we think that it would probably have been close to <Hroderic>. The initial <H> represented the sound of <ch> in German <ach> and Scottish <loch>. It wasn't used in Latin, so it eventually disappeared from the name, but we're pretty sure that it was still pronounced in the 6th century. The <d> probably had the sound of <th> in <then>; this was its normal pronunciation between vowels in the Latin of that time. Finally, the <o> was more like the vowel in <boat> than the ones in <hot> and <bought>; the spellings with <u> suggest that it may almost have approached the sound in <boot>.
Bynames were very rare in the 6th century Western Europe; most people had a single name, a given name. There are a few known exceptions, however. For instance, the 6th century Gothic king Baduila was also called Totila. In the same century a man named Wistrimundus was called Tato, and a woman named Eudila was also known as Bertholanda. [3] These bynames are themselves possible given names. It is generally assumed that one name, probably the one mentioned first, was the actual given name, and the other was used as a nickname, but we know virtually nothing about how such nicknames originated.
It would be most authentic for your persona to be named simply <Hroderic>. If you choose to register your name with the College of Arms, however, you'll need to have a byname. The most authentic form would be another 6th century Visigothic name. And despite the example of Eudila, also called Bertholanda, it seems to have been more common for the nickname to be a short name, as in the other examples. The names of some of the 6th and early 7th century Visigothic kings offer some possibilities, e.g., <Totila>, <Liuva>, <Suintila>, and <Chintila>. [4] In a formal document, which would have been written in Latin, your name might then have appeared as <Hrodericus sive
Totila> 'Roderick or Totila' or as <Hrodericus cognomento Liuva>
'Roderick called Liuva'.
A very common Latin formula that was used with Germanic names by the beginning of the 8th century is <X filius Y>, that is, 'X son of Y'. [3] It's quite likely that it was used earlier as well, though we have no actual examples. Any Visigothic masculine name from the 5th-7th centuries would make an appropriate name for your persona's father. So would contemporary names from other Germanic tribes, since there seems to have been quite a bit of intermarriage. Reference [4], which is available in many libraries, is probably the most convenient source of such early Germanic names. Some Visigothic names mentioned in it are <Alaric>, <Segeric>, <Ricimer>, <Frideric>, <Athanagild>, <Leuvigild>, <Recared>, and <Sisenand>.
In documentary use these would normally have been Latinized by adding <-us>, e.g., <Athanagildus>. That is the form in which you'd probably use one of them as a nickname, as in <Hrodericus sive Recaredus>. In the 'filius'-construction the father's name must be put into the genitive case, so the <-us> must be changed to <-i>, as in <Hrodericus filius Sisenandi>; <filius Sisenandi> corresponds to the English possessive 'Sisenand's son' or to the prepositional phrase 'son of Sisenand'.
Arval Benicoeur, Pedro de Alcazar and Zenobia Naphtali also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been helpful and that we can continue to serve you if you have any further questions.
For the Academy,
Talan Gwynek
[1] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, Vol. I (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1968).
[2] Piel, Joseph M., and Dieter Kremer, _Hispano-gotisches Namenbuch_ (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitaetsverlag, 1976).
[3] Stark, Franz, _Die Kosenamen der Germanen_ (Wiesbaden: Dr. Martin Saendig oHG., 1967 [1868]).
[4] Woolf, Henry Bosley, _The Old Germanic Principles of Name-Giving_ (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1939).