Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 652

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 652

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/652

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Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked about the feasibility of <Cibella Róinsech Monmoth> as an Irish name from the 13th or 14th century. (The slash denotes an acute accent over the preceding vowel.) We'll discuss each of the elements separately and then comment on the overall structure of the name.

You mentioned that <Cibella> was found in a dictionary of names used in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. Unfortunately, this is Chaucer's spelling of <Cybele>, the name of a Greek goddess. [7] So far as we know, this name was not used by human beings. However, the name <Sibyl> was quite common in medieval England in a variety of forms. In Latin documents it generally appeared as <Sibilla>. In everyday speech it took the forms <Sibely> and <Sibil> (also written <Sybil>, <Sibel>, <Sibill>, <Sibyll>, etc.). [Sc] Any of these would be appropriate for a 13th or 14th century English or Anglo-Irish name. We also found one instance in which the name was spelled <Cibell>, but it was from the late 16th century; we have no evidence to support an earlier spelling with initial <C>. [1]

<Róinsech> is an early Irish name, a feminine counterpart of the masculine name <Rónán>. It seems to have been quite rare even in the early period; the alternative feminine form <Rónnat> was apparently more common. [3, 4, 5] We are therefore concerned that <Róinsech> may not have survived into the 13th century. If it did, it would more commonly have been spelled <Róinseach>; the more common alternative became <Rónnait> or <Rónait>. [4] (These names are pronounced roughly \ROAN-shahkh\ and \ROAN-nitch\.)

<Monmoth> appears to be a fairly early variant of <Monmouth>. While we didn't find this exact form, we did find <de Monemue> 1218, <Monemuthe> 1298, <Monmouth> 1362, and <Monemothe> 1387. [2, 6] The first of these is definitely an early spelling; <Monemuthe> is probably the most typical of these spellings for an unspecified date in the 13th and 14th centuries. The place is in Wales, so anyone called <Monemuthe> or <de Monemuthe> would most likely be Welsh or of recent Welsh origin. In particular, in Ireland the name would probably be found only in an Anglo-Welsh family that had arrived in Ireland only fairly recently.

In short, <Sibilla> or one of its 13th or 14th century variants is fine; a reasonable case can be made for <Monemuthe> or the like; and <Róinseach> may be authentic. Unfortunately, there is no way to combine all three of these elements in a single historically authentic name. There are two major problems.

The first is that in period we don't find a mixture of Irish and English spellings in the same name. The spelling conventions of Irish and English were (and are) very different. A writer would use Irish conventions (in which, for instance, <mh> can represent the sound of <v> or <w>) when writing in Irish, and English conventions when writing in English. <Róinseach> is unquestionably spelled according to Irish conventions; the other two elements are not, and the combination therefore would not have occurred.

The second and even more important problem is that middle names, or double given names, weren't used in Ireland in our period. In England they were just beginning to appear at the very end of the 16th century, and then mostly for men. (We have only one or two examples of period Englishwomen with two given names.)

The easy way to fix both problems is simply to drop the middle element; <Sibilla Monemuthe>, <Sibel de Monemothe>, or the like would be a reasonable Anglo-Irish name c.1300 for someone whose family came originally from Wales.

If your friend is more concerned to keep <Róinseach>, a different byname will be needed. Most Irish bynames are either patronymic, giving the name of the bearer's father, or simple physical descriptions. She might, for instance, be <Róinseach inghean

Mhaghnusa> 'daugher of Magnus', or <Róinseach Ruadh> 'red'. (Here
<inghean Mhaghnusa> is pronounced roughly \IN-yen VAH-noos-a\, and <Ruadh> is \ROO-ah\.) This is just a fairly typical example of each type; if your friend is interested in something along these lines, we'll be happy to work on finding a satisfactory Irish byname.

Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that it has been useful and that you will write if you have any further questions.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek


[1] Innes, Kim Ann. 'An Index of Period Given Names Contained in _A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames_ by Charles Bardsley' (Privately printed, 1987).

[2] Johnson, James. _Place Names of England and Wales_ (London: Bracken Books, 1994 [1915]).

[3] O'Brien, M. A., ed. _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).

[4] O/ Corráin, Donnchadh & Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990).

[5] O/ Riain, Pádraig, ed. _Corpus Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1985).

[6] Reaney, P.H. & R.M. Wilson. _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991).

[7] Robinson, F.N., ed. _The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer_, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961).

[8] Talan Gwynek. 'Feminine Given Names in _A Dictionary of English Surnames_', 1996.

http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/reaney/