ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 834 http://www.s-gabriel.org/834 *********************************** ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports * * contain errors that we haven't yet * * corrected. Please use it with caution. * * * ************************************************* From: 3 Apr 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us about the use of as a Greek name, and the plausibility of as a byname formed from the name of the town . Before we answer these questions, we would like to clarify the purpose of the Academy. We try to provide expert advice on choosing and using names that are good historical re-creation, rather than simply producing minimal documentation for SCA registration. We also prefer to interact directly with clients when possible, since this reduces the possibilities of miscommunication, and allows our clients to express their needs directly to us in their own words. We are happy to help consulting heralds with their work, but if it possible for you to put your clients in direct contact with us, we believe it will be more productive. We did find as a Byzantine name in the 6th or 7th century [1], which would be appropriate for use in Greece. The Greek spelling used in the New Testament differs slightly from this, and could be transliterated -- notice the '-os' ending in Greek, as opposed to the '-us' in Latin. The city you inquired about appears to be labelled on modern English maps. It is located in the southern part of the province Argolis on the Peloponnesian peninsula. We could not find a clear reference to the city before 1600 in our sources, but here are some alternatives mentioned in antiquity that at least sound the same [2,3,4]: Kranioi, Kranaia, Kranieis - "city on the island of Kephallenia" (source: Thucydides) Kranion, Kraneion - "cypress grove near Corinth with a Gymnasion" (source: Plutarch) Kranae: - an island, probably in the Laconium gulf. Kranno:nios - someone from Kranno:n in Thessaly. (The 'o:' stands for omega, and 'e:' represents eta, rather than epsilon.) Unfortunately, we do not know much about the formation of Greek names in our period. Perhaps more unfortunately, there seem to be few records available for most of our period; the Grecian peninsula was invaded and looted repeatedly by Goths, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, and finally Turks. Greece was often under Byzantine control during our period. Not surprisingly then, the earliest bynames appear to have been the same as Roman (Byzantine) patterns [5,6], usually including a patronymic rather than a locative. That is, the second element of the name derived from the father's name, rather than from the person's place of origin [4]. The standard Greek form is generally considered to be: + example: If this resulted in two people which the same name, and more precision was required to identify an individual, the place of origin was added, eg. 'Sicyonian, of Sicyon'. In Attica the , or district, was appended: example: The form of locative surnames varies. When based on a town, the surname is often simply the town name, such as or , but they can also be an adjectival form, as in . Adjectival forms of provincial names were used: , , etc. Among the Byzantine aristocracy, family surnames based on place names began to appear in the 8th century and became common in the 10th century. Among servants and dependents of the aristocracy, bynames of various kinds appear in the 8th century. Beginning in the 11th century, servants and dependents often imitated the style of family surnames used by their masters. So from that date, a locative surname is not improbable. [7] >From the 9th to 11th century, patronymics sometimes used the suffix <-opoulos> added to a given name (, ) or occupational term (, ) or ethnic term (, , ). We therefore recommend a name in one of these forms: If you need assistance converting a particular name to the genitive, please let us know, and we would be happy to assist you. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Teceangl Bach contributed to this letter. In service, --Walraven van Nijmegen Academy of S. Gabriel [1] Bardas Xiphias _Common Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire During the 6th and 7th Centuries_ (WWW) http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/byzantine/early_byz_names.html [2] W. Pape, _Wo:rterbuch der Griechischen Eigennamen_ (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 1842) [3] George Ricker Berry, _The Classic Greek Dictionary_ (Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1962) [4] Felix Solmsen, _Eindogermanische Eigennamen als Spiegel der Kulturgeschichte_, edited and revised by Ernst Fraenkel (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitaetsbuchhandlung, 1922) [5] Pierre Cabanes, _Les Noms Latin Dans les Inscriptions Grecques D'E/pidamne-Dyrrhachion, D'Apollonia et de Bouthrotos_, pp. 89-104 in A.D. Rizakis, ed., _Roman Onomastics in the Greek East: Social and Political Aspects_ (Athens & Paris: Meltemata vol. 21, 1996) [6] Argyro B. Tataki _Ancient Beroea: Prosopography and Society_ (Athens: Meletemata vol. 8, 1988) [7] Cheynet, Jean-Claude, "L'Anthroponymie Aristocratique a\ Byzance" in Bourin, Monique, Jean-Marie-Martin, and Francois Menant, eds., _L'Anthroponymie: Document de l'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Me/diterrane/ens Me/die/vaux_, Collection de l'E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 226 (Rome: E/cole Franc,aise de Rome, 1996), pp.267-294.