Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 739

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 739

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/739

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 help choosing a 12th century Scottish Gaelic name. You said you are interested in the given names <Alycie> and <Ysenda>, and that you would like your father's name to begin with an L or an M. Here is what we have found.

In your period, there were several languages spoken in Scotland, including Norman-French, Gaelic, and Scots. Scots was a language closely related to contemporary English. Personal names in Gaelic are formed quite differently from names in the other languages, so there was only limited mixing of names between the two cultures. Neither <Alycie> nor <Ysenda> is a Gaelic name, so neither is appropriate for a Gaelic persona.

<Alycie> is a Scots form of <Alice>. That name was brought to England by the Normans in the form <Alis> and carried to Ireland, where it was adopted into Gaelic as <Alis> or <Ailis> [1, 2], pronounced roughly \AHL-yish\. We don't have evidence that this name was used by Gaelic-speaking women in Scotland, but since the Gaelic of Ireland and Scotland was a single language until quite late in our period, it is certainly possible that the name spread to Scotland. Unfortunately, it could not have done so in your took some time for names to be adopted into Gaelic and then spread. We wouldn't expect to find <Ailis> in Scotland before the 14th century.

<Ysenda> is a Norman name, derived from Frankish roots. It was very rare even among the Normans: We have found only a single example. It is not plausible that such a name could have been borrowed into Gaelic, and certainly not possible that this could have happened in the 12th century.

Where you go from here depends on your priorities. If you want a 12th century Scottish Gaelic name, you will need to choose a different given name. You can find a list of possibilities on the web in a couple

A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/simple_sc_gaelic_names_12.html

Early Irish Feminine Names From the Index To O'Brien's "Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae"
http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html

These articles also give some advice on how to construct a complete Gaelic name.

On the other hand, if you want to use <Alycie> or <Ysenda> or <Ailis>, then you'll have to change your persona. <Alycie> or <Ysenda> could have been used by a Scots-speaking woman in your period; <Ailis> could possibly have been used by a Gaelic-speaking woman in the 14th century or later. If you would like help constructing a name to fit either of these persona, let us know and we'll offer some specific suggestions.

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 Talan Gwynek.

For the Academy,

Arval Benicoeur


References

[1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_,

3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

[2] O/ Corráin, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The

Lilliput Press, 1990).