Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 824

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 824

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/824

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 information on a form of the surname <Mulbridie> that would be appropriate for a Irish name from the 12th or 13th century. Here is what we have found.

The modern surname <Mulbridie> derives from a Gaelic name <ua Máel Brigte>, which means "male descendent of Máel Brigte" [1, 3]. (The slash
represents an accent on the preceding letter.) <Máel Brigte> was a masculine given name (also occasionally used as a feminine name), pronounced \mell VREE-djeh\ [2, 3].

The Gaelic form <ua Máel Brigte> is masculine; a woman would not have used it. The feminine equivalent is <ingen uí Máel Brigte> "daughter of the male descendent of Máel Brigte", pronounced roughly \IN-yen ee vale VREE-djeh\. The word <ingen> means "daughter"; <uí> is the genitive (possessive) form of <ua> and means "of the male descendent".

If your friend adds an appropriate Irish feminine given name, like <Lassar>, you would have a fine 12th or 13th century Irish name: <Lassar ingen uí Máel Brigte>. You can find a list of given names appropriate to your friend's persona in the article "Feminine Names from the index to O'Brien's 'Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae'", available on the web at:

http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html

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] MacLysaght, Edward, _The Surnames of Ireland_ (Dublin: Irish Academic

Press Ltd., 1985, ISBN 0-7165-2366-3).

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

Lilliput Press, 1990).

[3] O'Brien, M. A., ed., Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin: The Dublin

Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).