Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 760

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 760

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/760

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 St. Gabriel!

You wrote asking for a Scottish woman's name with the surname "of Mar" for the period of 1200-1400.

In constructing a Scottish name, the first thing to consider is whether it should be in Scots or in Gaelic, the two languages spoken in Scotland during the period. Mar is relatively close to Aberdeen, and was primarily Scots speaking. Scots is a language closely related to English, and the names we are offering here are Scots.

Bynames indicating someone was "of Mar" were in use during the period you were interested in, and found in the following forms (with dates in parentheses)[1]:

For a first name, you could choose any Scots name found in the same period. Here are some examples [2]:

Putting these together, some possible choices are "Ada de Mar," "Elyne Mar," "Cristiana de Marr," "Isabelle de Marre," "Margaret de Mair," "Elizabet dictus Mar," "Esa de Maire," "Mariote Marre."

We hope this letter has been helpful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Alan Fairfax, Margaret Makafee and Effrick neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte contributed research and comments to this letter.

For the Academy,

AElfwyn aet Gyrwum


[1] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986).

[2] Talan Gwynek, "A List of Feminine Personal Names found in Scottish Records" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1996). The URL for this article is: