|
Greetings,
Here's the information we can give you on "Wayne the Bruce," which you wanted to use as a 13th- or 14th-century Scottish name.
We couldn't find any evidence that "Wayne" was used as a given name in the Middle Ages. According to SCA rules, you can pass "Wayne" as a given name since it's one of your mundane given names, but it would not be historically accurate and we don't recommend it. In addition, "Wayne Bruce" will make many people think immediately of Batman, which we suspect is something you've had to deal with enough as it is.
Given the other names you suggest, we suspect that you're looking at a list of names from "The Bruce." Since all of the names in this source are taken from a historical record of Scotland in your period, you can be sure that they were used then. If you haven't seen this Web page, you can find it at
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/scottish14.html
Most of the given names that you choose from this article would be quite appropriate for a 13th or 14th century Scots persona--some of the characters in the story are foreigners, and their names are listed as "Scots" names by the author. (Scots is a language similar to English which was one of the two most common languages in Scotland at this time. The other is Gaelic, which was spoken in Ireland and parts of Scotland. Scots and Gaelic are no more closely related than English and Greek). "Gib" and "Lowrens" would be the most likely names out of the ones you listed. We found "Roland" documented as early as 1204 in Scotland.
"Bruce" is a family name which was used by many people in Scotland. "The Bruce," on the other hand, usually designates the head of the Bruce family--and thus lays claim to a rank which you don't have. Therefore, you can use "Bruce" but not "the Bruce" as a byname.
We found a variety of spellings from your period, including: (1,2)
Briews 1221
Briwes 1239
Bruys 1240
Bruwes 1240
Bruze 1251
Brywes 1254
Brues 1255
Broyce 1390
Brois
Bruce
Brus
Brwce
Brwys
Brys
"Bruce" is a Scots name, not a Gaelic one, and it derives from the name of a place--in fact, it's often recorded as "de Bruce" during your period ("de" is Latin for "of" and was usually used in written documents). "mac" is a Gaelic word for "son," so "mac Bruce" isn't a possible form of this name. Thus, we recommend that you use "Bruce" or "de Bruce" (with one or more of the spellings we found) as your family name.
You wrote that you understood that arms were not historically accurate for your period. In fact, this is not correct: Heraldic arms were in ide use in 14th century Scots society. Any landowner or nobleman would very likely have used arms.
It's possible to design and register arms in the SCA that aren't historically accurate, but your persona would most likely have had arms and we recommend that you design arms according to 14th-century Scottish style. We know a reasonable amount what Scottish arms looked like in your period, so if you'd like to design arms that fit your persona, we can help.
Arval Benicouer, Talan Gwynek, Rouland Carre, Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte, Quintinus Alexander, Lindorm Eriksson, Elsbeth Anne Roth, 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, "The Surnames of Scotland"