Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 715

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 715

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/715

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 our opinion of <Vashti the Golden> as a Romany name. Here is what we have found.

We don't know a great deal about Romany naming; we haven't found any reliable sources that discuss it. What we have learned is that the Rom traditionally used two names: a private name in their own language, which was not used outside Romany society; and a public, legal name in the language of the country where they lived. We know nothing about the private names of the Rom, so any attempt to construct such a name would be pure invention. Romany public names followed the naming practices of the country where they lived, so before we can advise you on how to construct such a name we need to know where and when your persona lived.

<Vashti> is an English transliteration of a Hebrew or Aramaic rendering of the name of a Persian queen who is mentioned in the Old Testament [Esther how different it could have been, consider that her husband's name comes down to us through Greek as <Xerxes> and through Hebrew as <Ahasuerus> [2]. Like most Old Testament name, <Vashti> was apparently not used in medieval Europe. The earliest evidence we find of its use as a normal name dates only to the 1850s [1]. Since the biblical Vashti was the disobedient wife of a pagan enemy of the Jews, we think it is unlikely that the name would have appealed to any Judeo-Christian culture in our period.

The three previous registrations of <Vashti> provide no additional information. Two of them were registered before documentation was required. The third was documented only from the Old Testament. It is possible that the name is still registerable on that basis -- we cannot say for certain -- but we should warn you that previous registration does not guarantee current acceptability.

If you set your persona somewhere in medieval Europe, then your public name would be typical of the non-Romany names in that culture. Therefore, <Vashti> would be appropriate for your persona only if it were in use in that culture. As we noted above, we have not found the name in use in any period culture.

If you can tell us where and when you want to set your persona, we will be happy to offer some guidance on choosing an appropriate name.

Your byname <the Golden> is English, and is most appropriate for the 13th to 15th centuries. We have found 13th century examples: <Walter le Gelden'> 1212, <Hilde Golden'> 1279 [3]. After the 15th century, personal descriptive bynames became rare in English. The surname <Golden> continued in use, but the description <the Golden> did not.

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. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn and Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,

Arval Benicoeur


References

[1] Dunkling, Leslie and William Gosling, _The New American Dictionary

of First Names_ (Signet Books, 1983).

[2] University of Notre Dame Department of Theology, Glossary of Religion

http://www.nd.edu/~theo/glossary/ahasuerus.html

[3] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames

(London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995).