ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 839 http://www.s-gabriel.org/839 *********************************** ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports * * contain errors that we haven't yet * * corrected. Please use it with caution. * * * ************************************************* From: "S Friedemann" 3 Apr 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is a valid Byzantine feminine given name at some time from the 9th century onward, and also for information on surnames from that culture. Here is what we have found. While we did not find in our sources, it would be a reasonable feminization of the name [1], which was used in early medieval Byzantium, but which fell out of use by the 10th century. [2] Most Byzantine noble women were identified either as their father's daughters or as their husband's wives. For example, , a daughter of ; , daughter of ; , widow of . These examples were recorded before the 9th century. Family surnames began to appear in the 9th century, and from the first half of the 11th century, women's names appear in official records with surnames. Women almost always used their fathers' or occasionally their mothers' surnames rather than their husbands'. Among the nobility, family names were very often based on place names. We could not find any evidence of a place name like , but if that place name existed in Byzantium in this period, then it could certainly be used as the basis for a family name. The feminine form might have been . Since is an early medieval name which dropped out of use sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries, and since family names were not widely used by women until the 11th century, it probably is not historically correct to use with a family name. Instead, we recommend a simple patronymic like . You are correct that a mixed Byzantine/Arabic name is historically implausible. It is particularly unlikely that the Latin name would have been mixed with an Arabic byname: the use of Latin names declined sharply with the hellenization of Byzantium between the 8th and 10th centuries, and the masculine had disappeared by the time of the Arabic conquest [2]. We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear, or if you have any other questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Arval Benicoeur, Margaret Makafee, and Pedro de Alcazar. For the Academy, Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael Caermyrdin --------------------------------------------------- References: [1] Bardas Xiphias, Common Names of the Aristocracy in the Roman Empire During the 6th and 7th Centuries (WWW: Privately published, 1997). [2] 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.