ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 871
http://www.s-gabriel.org/871
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* NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports *
* contain errors that we haven't yet *
* corrected. Please use it with caution. *
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* NOTE: Later research turned up additional *
* information relevant to this report. *
* See the end of the letter for details. *
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6 Apr 1998
From: (Josh Mittleman)
Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked for help choosing a 15th Scottish Gaelic name using the given
name <Burgondofara> or <Melanie>, and with your father's name being
<Alysandir> or <Williame>. Here is what we have found.
Your request is difficult to answer: You asked for a Gaelic name, but the
names you want to use are not Gaelic names. We'll give some information
about each of the names you asked about and then we'll discuss Gaelic
women's names from your period. If we've misunderstood your interest,
please write us again and explain what sort of name you're looking for, and
we'll try to help.
<Burgundofara> is a Frankish name, used by a saint [1]. We found examples
of the masculine form <Burgundofaro> the 7th century and of <Fara>, a
nickname for the feminine form, in the 8th [2]. The masculine name
survived in use throughout our period in the short forms <Faron> and
<Farel> [3, 5]; the feminine could also have persisted, but we haven't
found an example. In general, fewer Frankish feminine names than masculine
names continued in use through the late Middle Ages.
While some form of <Fara> may have been in use in France in your period, it
is far less likely that any version of the name was in use in Scotland and
essentially impossible that it could have been used in Scottish Gaelic
culture. Some French names were carried to Scotland by Norman settlers in
the 12th and 13th centuries, and some were no doubt transferred through
other cultural contacts, but only a very few French-derived women's names
have been found in use in Scottish Gaelic in our period. We strongly
recommend that you choose some other name if you want a Scottish Gaelic
persona.
The name <Melanie> derives from <Melania>, the name of two early saints.
It was not uncommon in France, and was probably brought to England in the
17th century by Hugenot refugees. It didn't become common until the 1940s
[4]. Unfortunately, we find no evidence that it was used in Scotland or in
Gaelic, so we also recommend that you avoid this name.
<Williame> and <Alysandir> are Scots spellings of names that were also used
in Gaelic. Both names were carried to Scotland from abroad and were used
in Scots before they were adopted into Gaelic. Scots and Gaelic are
different languages, both of which were spoken in Scotland your period. In
rough terms, Scots was spoken in the Lowlands and Gaelic in the Highlands.
Scottish Gaelic was identical to Irish Gaelic. Scots was closely related
to contemporary English. Names in the two languages were constructed quite
differently, and the two languages weren't mixed, although forms of some
given names were found in both languages. <William> and <Alexander> are
two examples: They appear in various forms in Scots, including <Williame>
and <Alysandir> [6], and also in Gaelic as <Uilliam> and <Alastar>,
<Alusdar>, or <Alasdar> [7, 8].
Since none of the names you asked about is Gaelic, we're not quite sure
what you want to do. If you want a 15th century Scottish Gaelic name, then
you need to pick a Gaelic given name, which you can then combine with your
father's name to form a complete name. For example, if your name were
<Aifric>, you might be called <Aifric inghean Uilliam> "Aifric daughter of
William", pronounced \AHF-rick NEE-yen WILL-yahm\. Because Gaelic was
rarely written in Scotland, the same name would generally have been written
in a Scots form like <Affrick Williame> or <Effrick nin Williame>.
Here are two lists of given names that you may want to consider. The first
includes women's names that we believe were used in Scottish Gaelic. There
are very few examples of Gaelics women's names in surviving Scottish
records, so we don't know many names from that culture. None of the ones
we do know begin with the sounds \f\ or \ch\ that interest you. However,
we can look to Irish records for other possibilities: Many names were
shared between the Gaelic cultures of the two countries. So the second
list gives a few Irish women's names beginning with \f\. We couldn't find
any names beginning \ch\. In the names, a slash represents an accent on
the preceding vowel. In the pronunciations (shown in the second column),
\kh\ represents the hard, rasping <ch> sound in German <Bach> or Scottish
<loch>.
Aifric \AHF-rick\ or \EHF-rick\ [8,10]
Allasan \AHL-a-sahn\ [11]
Beathag \BAY-ahk\ [8,11]
Caitri/ona or Caitrina \KAHT-ree-nah\
(Gaelic borrowing of Katherine) [8]
Cairistiona \ka-ris-CHEE-na\ [8]
(Gaelic borrowing of Cristiana)
Ealusaid \EHL-uhs-ahtch\ [9,10]
(Gaelic borrowing of Elizabeth or Elisot)
E/va \AY-vah\ [8, 9]
Greudach \GREE-a-takh\ or \GREH-takh\ [11]
Maol-Mhuire \M#L VUR-reh\ [8]
("servant of [Saint] Mary")
Marsaili \MAR-se-lee\ [8]
(a form of <Marcella>)
Muirgheal \MYOOR-yeel\ [8]
(a form of <Muriel>)
Sitheag \SHEE-ahk\ [8]
Tyock \TEE-ahk\ [8]
(non-Gaelic spelling of an unidentified
Gaelic name)
Raghnailt \RU-niltch\, \U\ as in <pull> [8]
The second list, all from reference [7]:
Faoileann \FEE-lyahn\
Fainnear \FAHN-yar\
Fann \FOWN\, rhyming with <down>
Feidhelm \FYAY-yelm\
Fe/thnait \FYAY-nitch\
Fiadhnait \FEE-ahn-itch\
Fionnabhair \FYUN-oor\
Finneacht \FEEN-yakht\
Fionnghuala \FYUN-oo-a-la\
Fionnait \FYUN-nitch\
Finnseach \FEEN-shahkh\
Flannait \FLAH-nitch\
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 Alan Fairfax, Talan Gwynek, and
Walraven van Nijmegen.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
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References
[1] _Butler's Lives of the Saints_, Herbert J. Thurston and Donald
Attwater eds. (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1958).
[2] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de
l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_, three volumes (Paris: Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972).
[3] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et
Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987).
[4] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_,
3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
[5] Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Etude d'anthroponymie picarde, les noms de
personne en Haute Picardie aux XIIIe, XIVe, XVe siecles_ (Amiens, Musee
de Picardie, 1967).
[6] Symon Freser of Lovat, "13th & 14th Century Scottish Names" (WWW:
J. Mittleman, 1996).
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/scottish14/.
[7] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The
Lilliput Press, 1990).
[8] Black, George F., The Surnames of Scotland, (New York: The New York
Public Library, 1986).
[9] A photograph of the "1467 MS", a Gaelic genealogical manuscript, which
is shelf-marked 72.1.1 in the Scottish National Library. Colm O'Boyle
has kindly helped with our transcriptions from this manuscript.
[10] Woulfe, Patrick, Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames
(Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation).
[11] Morgan, Peadar, Ainmean Chloinne: Scottish Gaelic Names for Children
(Scotland: Taigh na Teud Music Publishers, 1989).
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Correction, 26 Mar 2002, Arval: Removed <Ealasaid>, a modern spelling we've
not yet found in period sources. See Scottish Gaelic Given Names,
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/gaelicgiven.