Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 544

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 544

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/544

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 the name "Nikolai Dragoslav," which you want to use as a Russian name from the 15th century.

The earliest example of "Nikolai" we found is from 1292, and it's still used today. We're sure that this is a reasonable name for your period. The oldest example of "Dragoslav" we found is also from 1292. We are quite sure that these names are much older, but they were definitely used in the 15th century.

Almost all Russian men in your period had a patronymic--a name which means "son of <father>." Russian men sometimes had one given name, but sometimes had two--an "Old Russian" name of Slavic origin and a "Christian" or baptismal name, generally the name of a saint.

You could follow either of these models.

First, you could modify "Dragoslav" to make it a patronymic. There are several ways to do this for your period. You could use

The third form is the most common, but the first two are both recorded in your period.

Alternatively, you could use "Nikolai" as a baptismal name and "Dragoslav" as your "Old Russian" name. "Nikolai" is a Christian name (from S. Nicholas) and "Dragoslav" is a Slavic name, so this would be a reasonable combination. If you did this, then you should add a patronymic.

A huge list of Russian names (which we used as our source), and instructions on forming patromyics are on the Web at

http://www.sca.org/heraldry/paul

If you like, we can suggest some names--let us know if there's anything in particular you're looking for.

Talan Gwynek, Aelfwynn aet Gwyrum, and Evan da Collaureo 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