ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 991
http://www.s-gabriel.org/991
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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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26 May 1998
From: Joshua Mittleman 


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked for information about the name <Illia>, which you hope to use as
a French feminine name.  Here is what we have found.

We were unable to find <Illia> as a French personal name.  We did find it as
a place name.  The name of the town of <Illac> is recorded as <Illia>
around the year 1250 [1].

We did find some fairly similar early-medieval personal names.  We find the
name <Elia> or <Helia> recorded from the 8th to the 11th centuries.  The
masculine form of the same name, <Elius>, appears in around 800 as <Ilius>
[2].  These examples establish a good argument that <Ilia> is a plausible
name for the same period.  But we don't find any spelling of this name with
a double <l>, so we recommend against <Illia>.  

We also found the name <Alia> in use in about the same period [2].

If you want an early medieval Frankish persona, then <Elia> or <Ilia> is a
reasonable first name.  In this period, people used only a single name, so
it would be most authentic for you to use no surname at all.  If you want
to register this name, you'll need some kind of surname; the best choice
would be a byname that identifies your father.  Written documents in this
period were uniformly in Latin, so the best written forms of your name
would be something like <Elia filia Johanis> "Elia, daughter of Johanes".
But in everyday speech, you would have been known by your first name
alone. 

If you want a later-medieval persona, then you might want to use the place
name <Illia> in your name.  A name like <Alys d'Illia> would be a good
choice for a 13th century persona.  That name would have been written in
Latin as <Alicia de Illia>.


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 Margaret M'Fee, AElfwyn ate Gyrwum,
Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, and
Giulietta da Venezia.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  26 May 1998


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References

[1] Dauzat, Albert & Ch. Rostaing, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de
Lieux de la France_ (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1963), s.n. Illac.

[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), I:32b; v.II s.nn. Elia,
Elius.

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