ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 911 http://www.s-gabriel.org/911 *********************************** ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports * * contain errors that we haven't yet * * corrected. Please use it with caution. * * * ************************************************* From: 4 May 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us about French masculine names meaning "sailor of life" or "sailor of life's river" and about the name . To begin, we'd like to clarify the service that the Academy offers. We try to help Societyfolk in choosing and using names that fit the historical cultures they are trying to re-create. Our research can sometimes be used to support submissions to the College of Arms, but that is not our goal and our results are sometimes incompatible with the College's needs. If your primary goal is to register a particular name, then we may not be able to help you. is a given name derived from a Latin word meaning "of or pertaining to the sea". It was used as a name in France in the 10th and 11th centuries and the shorter form is recorded in Paris in 1292 [1,2]. Neither of these names _meant_ "sailor", however. Nearly all names ultimately derived from normal words in some language, but it was very rare for people to continue to associate a given name with the meaning of those ancient root words. Once these words came to be used as names, they were merely names and no longer had a deeper meaning. If you want a name that means "the sailor", then you could use the French as a descriptive byname and choose a different given name to go with it. For example, would be a fine name for any time from the late Middle Ages onward. We could not find a byname that means "of the river of life" or "of life". Based on our knowledge of French naming, we do not believe that these very abstract concepts would have been used as names in our period. Names were more concrete, and a byname was usually extra word or phrase added to the given name to further identify an individual. In much of our period, people used various kinds of descriptive bynames, often using several different bynames, each under different circumstances. A man might be identified as his father's son one day, by his profession the next day, and by some physical characteristic a third day. When travelling abroad, he might be known by the town or region from which he came. Bynames usually fall into one of these categories: (a) identifying the father, (b) identifying place of origin or residence, e.g. , (c) identifying an occupation, (d) identifying some obvious characteristic, usually physical, e.g. , meaning "the brown" Your suggested byname meaning "of life" or "of life's river" does not fall into any category of byname that was used, so we cannot offer any specific suggestions. There were names meaning "of the river", but they were used in the sense of "someone who lives near the river". In French, these would be [3], or in England (ca. 1150, [4]). You might also look at any of the following sources on French names for ideas that appeal to you: Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987). Dauzat, Albert, _Les Noms de Famille de France_ (Paris: Librairie Guenegaud, 1988). Morlet, Marie-Therese, _Dictionnaire E/tymologique des Noms de Famille_ (Librairie Acade/mique Perrin, 1997). We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. Arval Benicouer, Talan Gwynek, Margaret Makafee, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, and Aryanhwy Prytydes merch Catmael Caermyrdin contributed to this letter. In service, --Walraven van Nijmegen Academy of S. Gabriel [1] M.-T. Morlet, _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Siecle_ (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972) [2] Colm Dubh, _An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris_ Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (Montgomery, Alabama: SCA) [3] Dauzat, Albert, _Les Noms de Famille de France_ (Paris: Librairie Guenegaud, 1988) [4] P.H. Reaney & R.M. Wilson _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (Oxford University Press, 1995)