Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 706

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 706

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/706

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 S. Gabriel!

You asked whether it was possible to document <Ayla> or something similar as a period feminine name.

The purpose of the Academy is primarily to offer assistance to people who want to choose and use names and arms appropriate to the period cultures that they are re-creating. This includes providing relevant documentation, but the historical plausibility of the name comes first. Fortunately, <Ayla> turns out to be an entirely reasonable spelling variant of a Frankish feminine name recorded in what is now France in the 9th and 10th centuries. The name is recorded as <Aila> in the mid-9th century polyptych of Reims, and the masculine equivalent is recorded as <Eylo> at Cluny in 955. [3] It probably originated as a pet form of some longer Frankish feminine name like <Ayloara>, <Ailtrudis>, <Ailsinda>, <Ailarada>, <Ailmodis>, or <Ailiburgis>. [4] (It's pronounced roughly \EYE-la\ or possibly in some dialects \AY-la\.)

In the 9th and 10th centuries most people in the Frankish kingdoms had only a given name. [1, 2] If you choose to register your name with the College of Arms, however, you'll need to have a byname, i.e., a second name that distinguishes you from any other <Ayla>. The most authentic types to accompany a 9th or 10th century Frankish name are bynames describing you as someone's daughter or wife. For instance, if your father's name were <Aylimarus> or <Ailulfus>, you might appear in contemporary records as <Ayla filia Aylimari> 'Ayla daughter of Aylimar' or <Ayla filia Ailulfi> 'Ayla daughter of Ailulf'. Or if your husband's name were <Willelmus> or <Germanus>, you might appear as <Ayla uxor Willelmi> 'Ayla wife of Willelm' or <Ayla uxor Germani> 'Ayla wife of German'.

Notice that in the patronymic examples we used men's names that begin with the same element found in the name <Ayla>: it was quite common for children to be partly named after a parent in this way. Other patronymics using men's names containing this element are listed below. [3]

filia Aylebaldi
filia Ailberti
filia Eilfridi
filia Eilgeri
filia Eilgaudi
filia Ayleardi (or Ailhardi, or Aylardi) filia Ailmundi
filia Aileranni
filia Ailaldi
filia Ailoini

Since you specifically asked about documentation, you may want to know that this letter is acceptable to the College of Arms as documentation for any of the suggested forms; just print it out in its entirety, complete with headers.

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn and Arval Benicoeur also contributed to this letter. We hope that the information is useful and that you will write us again if you have any further questions.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek


[1] Jarnut, J. 'Avant l'An Mil', in Bourin, Monique, Jean-Marie-Martin, and Francois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Méditerranéens Médiévaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226 (Rome: E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996). (The slashes represent acute accents over the preceding vowels; <c,> stands for the c-cedilla.)

[2] Menant, F. 'L'Italie Centro-Septentrionale', in Bourin, Monique, Jean-Marie-Martin, and Francois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Méditerranéens Médiévaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226 (Rome: E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996).

[3] Morlet, Marie-There\se. Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Sie\cle, Vol. I (Paris: E/ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1968). (The backslash stands for an accent grave over the preceding vowel.)

[4] Technically these names aren't purely Frankish in these forms, which show some influence from the Romance language that was to become Old French; they might be called 'Franco-Romance'. But they are recognizably Frankish in origin.