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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked for our opinion of the name <Morgan the Celt de Artemis> as a name for a Celtic Romany travelling merchant in the late Renaissance. Here is what we have found.
Before I begin, I should explain the purpose of the Academy. Our goal is to provide the best possible advice to Societyfolk who are interested in choosing and using historically accurate names. Our advice can be useful in registering names with the College of Arms, but we are not affiliated with the College and we evaluate names by different standards. Ours are usually stricter, since the College only requires a minimal level of historical documentation. We do not register or return names; we only give advice on accurate re-creation. If your primary interest is registering your name or if you aren't interested in having a name that is historically accurate, then our advice may not be useful to you.
There are several problems with your name as historical re-creation. We will explain them in detail; please ask us about any detail that you find unclear.
As Alan Fairfax has already explained, <Morgan> is a much-misused name in the Society. <Morgan> itself is a Welsh masculine name, also used by the Scottish Gaels. A closely related masculine name <Morgunn> was also used in medieval Scotland and much earlier as <Morgund>. The similar but unrelated <Muirghein> is an Irish name used by both men and women. Despite many years of research, no one in the Society has found evidence that any other name like <Morgan> was used by real people in period [1, 3]. For full details, please see reference [1], which is available on the web.
No one in our period would have described herself as <the Celt>. The idea of pan-Celtic identity is modern, arising in the 19th century. Even the word <Celt> was not used in English until the 17th century [2]. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the several Celtic nations had distinct cultures and languages and did not consider themselves to be any more closely related to one another than to their other neighbors. A period woman might have called herself (or have been called by others) Irish, Welsh, Cornish, or Breton, but not Celtic. The ancient Romans described some of their neighbors as <Celtae>, but the term lost any practical meaning long before the Middle Ages.
<Artemis> is an ancient Greek goddess. None of the ancient Celtic nations worshipped the Greek pantheon; they all had their own separate religions with their own gods and goddesses. Of course, by the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, all the Celtic peoples had been fervently Christian for centuries. The Irish, for example, were the stronghold of Christianity in the Dark Ages between the fall of Rome and the foundation of the Carolingian Empire.
We do not know of any example in period of a Greek goddess' name being used as a surname. The preposition <de> is used in several languages to mean "from" or "of", usually used in names to indicate where someone lives. For example, the French <Jean de Rheims> means "Jean who comes from Rheims". We haven't seen <de> used to indicate religious devotion.
In some countries in the Renaissance, the names of classical goddesses were used as given names. If you are interested in using something like <Artemis> as a given name, write us again: We may be able to help you.
You mentioned that you are considering a Gypsy persona. <Gypsy> is a name for a specific ethnic group which has traditionally travelled through continental Europe and England. Although modern people sometimes call anyone who wanders a <gypsy>, the word properly refers to a member of that ethnic group. Gypsies call themselves <Rom>, and their language is <Romany>. Since the Rom aren't related to any Celtic group, we are guessing that you not interested in a specifically Rom persona. If we're mistaken, we can provide you with the information we have on Romany names.
Finally, you mentioned that your name appears on your SCA membership card in a different spelling than the one you wrote on your membership form. This is just a clerical error. The membership office does not evaluate your name before writing it into their records. They will use any name you want. Registering your name with the College of Arms is a different process; the College does judge your name on historical accuracy and on other standards and may or may not register 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. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasfryn.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
References
[1] Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, "Concerning the Names Morgan,
Morgana, Morgaine, Murghein, Morrigan, and the Like" (WWW: The Problem
Names Archive, 1997).
http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/problem_names/morgan.html
[2] --, _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1973).
[3] Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte, "A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th
Century Scottish Bynames", (WWW: Privately published, 18 June 1997). <URL:http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/simple_sc_gaelic_names_12.html>