ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 986 http://www.s-gabriel.org/986 *********************************** ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Some of the Academy's early reports * * contain errors that we haven't yet * * corrected. Please use it with caution. * * * ************************************************* 12 Jun 1998 From: Jaymi Bouziden Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel. You asked for information on , which you wanted to use as an Hungarian feminine name anytime in the Society's period. You also asked about your proposed arms, which you described as a silver chevron with a gold bat on a black background above it and a plain purple background below it. In period, Hungarian names were almost invariably constructed of a single given name and a byname; we have found no evidence that double given names were used. Either or is an excellent choice for a late-period given name. We have one example of and a variety of spellings for , all recorded in the 16th century. [1] is located in the Nyitra (Nitra) district of what is now Slovakia, but it was in Hungary for most of our period. We found the locative byname , meaning "from Csejte", in 1501. Some other spellings from the late 16th century are Chey:thy: Cheyty Chey:ty Cheythi [2] All of these are pronounced \CHAY-teh\; any would be an acceptable late period byname for you. (The colon represents an umlaut over the preceding letter.) So, or would be an authentic Hungarina feminine name for late period. Please note, Hungarian names in period could be written either in given name-byname order or in byname-given name order. The SCA College of Heralds registers Hungarian names byname-first, following modern Hungarian practice. Your proposed arms are blazoned "Per chevron sable and purpure, a chevron argent and in chief a reremouse Or". While these arms appear to be a reasonable design for registration with the SCA College of Heralds, there are features in this design that are unusual in period armory, including the use of purple, two different field (background) colors, the chevron covering the line of division, and the bat. We know very little about Hungarian heraldry, so we can offer few suggestions. What we do know suggests that a blue background and a green mount with something standing on or floating above the mount was a common design. We found no registered conflicts at this time with your proposed design. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any more questions or if any of this letter has been unclear. Walraven van Nijmegen, Zenobia Naphtali, and Arval Benicoeur contributed research and commentary for this letter. For the Academy, Livia Montgomery 12 June 1998 _________________________ [1] Walraven van Nijmegen. "Hungarian Feminine Names". WWW : B. Speer, 1997. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1336/magfem.html [2] Ka/zme/r Miklo/s. _Re/gi Magyar Csala/dnevek Szo/ta/ra/: XIV-XVII Sza/zad_. Budapest : Magyar Nyelvtudoma/nyi Ta/rsasa/g, 1993. _________________________