Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 651

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 651

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/651

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked for advise on creating a name for a late-period French/Italian persona. Here is what we have found.

Although it is very common in the Society to try to indicate mixed parentage in one's name, it simply wasn't done in period. In the rare cases when two people from different countries married, their children were named according to the naming practices of the country where they lived. If they moved from one country to another, they would either retain their original names or use local equivalents. That is to say, if a Frenchman named <Jean> settled in an Italian city, he might have been known to the Italians as <Giovanni Franceso> "Giovanni the Frenchman". If he married and had a son, the boy might be known by two forms of his name: one French, one Italian. But it would make no sense for anyone to call him something half French and half Italian.

There are examples of names being transferred from one language to another, but they were almost invariably adapted to the new language in some way: Italian <Gabriella> became French <Gabrielle> (or vice versa); Anglo-Norman <Jehan> became Irish <Seaan>.

The modern middle name, which is a separate second given name, didn't exist in our period. Double given names first became common in a few places in the late 13th century, but did not gain widespread popularity until the end of our period and did not appear in many places until after our period. Almost everyone in Europe before 1600 had only one given name. Double given names were in use in Italy and France in the late couple centuries of our period, but these were treated more as compound names than as two separate given names, i.e. <Jean-Paul> or <Giancarlo> was consider a single compound.

Our best advice is that you should choose a given name and a surname from one culture. If you want to use your name in the context of a different culture, translate it.

I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions.

For the Academy,

Arval Benicoeur