ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 926 http://www.s-gabriel.org/926 *********************************** ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports * * contain errors that we haven't yet * * corrected. Please use it with caution. * * * ************************************************* From: 26 May 1998 Greetings, Here's the information we found on your name. You said you wanted to use the 16th-century Scottish name Margaret Napier for a woman married to Simon Montgomerie. Each element of your name has many variations--for example, we found 24 different ways to write "wife of" that are appropriate for 16th- century Scotland. To make things simpler, we will discuss the structure of your name first, and then the possible variations of each element. One of our members is doing research on records from 16th-century Aberdeen, so we have a great deal of information about how women's names were recorded there. We have much less information about how married women's names were recorded in England and France, but it is very unlikely that there was one standard system. In fact, we suspect that the information we found is broadly applicable to England and France as well. Your name could have been recorded in Scots in one of three basic ways: * * * The third, longer name is more common in very formal documents; the first two are more common in less formal documents. (1) It would be totally appropriate for you to use different forms of your name in different situations. We generally recommend that people register the most formal version of their name, but in day-to-day use, you could use a shorter form. There are spelling variants for all the names you listed. We only included the ones found in the 16th century. Margaret: (2,3) * Margaret, 1529 * Margrat, 1557-85 * Margret, 1556 * Margeret, 1501-1521 * Margarit, 1501-1521 * Margoret, 1501-1521 * Margreit, 1501-1521 * Mege, 1501-1521 * Megy, 1501-1521 * Meg, 1501-1521 * Mag, 1501-1521 Napier: (4) * Napier, 1550-1617 Simon (dated between 1500-1550): (1) * Symon * Symond * Symone * Symont Montgomerie: (4) (note that we didn't find the spelling you used in Scotland) * Montgomry, 1557 * Montgumery, 1559 * Montgumre, 1529 * Montgumry, 1501 * Montgumrye, 1509 * Monthgumry, 1548 * Monthtgumry, 1548 * Mundgumbry, 1519 * Mungumre, 1521 * Mungumry, 1559 * Mungumbry, 1500 * Mwngwmry, 1562 * Mongumre, 1592 * Mongumrie, 1574 "Wife" and "Spouse" (pronounced \spooss\, with \oo\ as in "spoon,") were both used in Scottish records. We found many different spellings, including: * wif * vif * wyf * wife * wyff * spouiB (where "B" represents a "fancy s" that resembles the German "ess-tset" or a capital "B") * spouB * spous Records include notations such as , , and (the in is a representation of the letter thorn and is pronounced as in ). You could substitute any of the spellings we found above for . In Latin the basic form would be . Based on the records we've seen, the first names would be modified to fit Latin grammar, and the family names would be kept in their normal Scots forms. So as you can see, there are a very large number of ways to write your name--based only on the variants which are actually recorded in the 16th century, we can find 16,139 different ways in Scots alone. There are other possible variations based on earlier or later forms. Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte, Lindorm Eriksson, Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, Walraven van Nigmege, and Zenobia Naphtali contributed to this letter. We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you. In service, Alan Fairfax Academy of S. Gabriel (1) The manuscript Aberdeen Council Registers, Volumes 8 - 20 (1501-1551), in the Aberdeen City Archives. (2) Scott, B. "A List of Feminine Personal Names Found in Scottish Records." (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 1997). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/scottishfem.html (3) Krossa, S. "Early 16th Century Scottish Town Women's Names." (WWW: Academy of S. Gabriel, 1997) http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/acr_1501_womens_names.html (4) Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986).