ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2423
http://www.s-gabriel.org/2423
************************************

22 Dec 2001
From: Ursula Whitcher 

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You wanted to know whether the name <Aminah> and a byname meaning "mother 
of Alexander" would be appropriate for a sixteenth-century Turkish 
woman.  Here is what we have found.

You've chosen an Arabic name; bynames that include the name of one's child 
are also typical Arabic usage.  Turkish and Arabic were quite different 
languages. We have considerable information about period Arabic naming 
practices, but much less about Turkish naming.  We do know that the Turks 
adopted some Arabic names and that they used Arabic naming customs in at 
least some circumstances. However, our knowledge is far from complete.  In 
this letter, we'll discuss Arabic names first, and then possibilities for a 
Turkish name and byname.

There are two Arabic women's names that could be written as <Aminah>.  One 
is <Ami:na>, which derives from a byname of the prophet Muhammad which 
meant "the trustworthy"; the other is <A:mina>, which was the name of 
Muhammad's mother. (In these names, the colon (:) stands for a long mark 
over the preceding vowel.)  We think that <Ami:na> was pronounced 
\ah-MEE-n@\ and <A:mina> was pronounced \AH-mee-n@\, where the symbol @ 
stands for the sound of 'a' in <about> and <soda>.  (This sound is called 
schwa.)  We believe either of these names would be appropriate for an 
Arabic-speaking Muslim woman in the sixteenth-century. [1]

The Arabic form of the name <Alexander> is <Iskandar>. [3]  We believe that 
although this name was always rare among Arabic speakers, it is appropriate 
for your period.  Forms of <Alexander> were much more common in non-Arabic 
parts of the Islamic world; we'll discuss one of these forms later.  The 
word <umm> means "mother of"; a woman named <Ami:na> with a son called 
<Iskandar ibn Ibrahim>, "Iskandar son of Ibrahim", might have been called 
<Umm Iskandar Ami:na>.  We believe this name would have been pronounced 
\oom ee-SKAHN-d@r ah-MEE-n@\, where <oom> rhymes with the word <doom>.

In Arabic, women often use bynames that identify them as their father's 
daughters.  If you'd like to choose an Arabic name for your father as well, 
we can recommend the following article:

"Arabic Naming Practices And Period Names List"
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/daud/arabic-naming/

The word <bint> means "daughter of", so a woman named <Ami:na> whose father 
was named <Sulaiman ibn Muhammad> and whose son was called <Iskandar ibn 
Ibrahim> could have been known as <Umm Iskandar Ami:na bint Sulaiman>, <Umm 
Iskandar bint Sulaiman>, or simply <Ami:na bint Sulaiman>. [4]

We did not find any evidence that the names <Ami:na> and <A:mina> were used 
in Turkish in your period.  However, you may be interested in the similar 
name <Emine>, which was used in sixteenth-century Istanbul; we believe this 
name was pronounced \eh-mee-NEH\, where <eh> sounds like the 'e' in the 
word <met>. [5]  It's possible that <Emine> is a Turkish borrowing of the 
name <Ami:na>, or that it derives from the Turkish word <emin>, which means 
"secure", "certain", or "trustworthy"; we do not have enough evidence to be 
sure. [11]

A short list of other Ottoman Turkish women's names follows. [5]  If you're 
interested in any of these names, please write to us again and we can give 
you the appropriate pronunciation.  (Until the twentieth century, Turkish 
was written in an Arabic script; to represent Ottoman Turkish names in the 
Roman alphabet, we need some special symbols. [14]  In this list, a comma 
represents a cedilla or small hook under the preceding letter, as in <s,>, 
quotation marks represent an umlaut or pair of dots over the preceding 
letter, as in <u">, and a closing parenthesis represents a small u over the 
preceding letter, as in <g)>.  In the system of transliteration we've used 
here, which is based on modern Turkish, the sound of the letter 'I' depends 
on whether or not it is dotted.  Here 'i' stands for a dotted letter 'I', 
and 'I' stands for the undotted letter.  If you're having trouble 
distinguishing between 'I' and other letters, you may want to read our 
message in a font with serifs, such as Courier or Times New Roman.)

Asul
Ays,e
Behiye
Benefs,e
Canhabibe
Dervis,e (probably related to <dervish>, an ecstatic Sufi mystic)
Devlet
Dilber
Dur-cihan
Emine
Fatima
Gu"lbahar
Gu"lfem
Gu"mu"s
Hafza
Huban
Husni inanpas,a
ine
islah
Kadem
Mansure
Melike
Nar
Nas
Ira
Nefise
Nergis
Neslihan
Pas,abeg)i
Rabiye
S,ah-huban
Sara
Saruca
Selc,uk
Selime
S,erife-Bol
S,eruda
Sitti
Surur
Tenrebile
Tohin
Zu"hal

The Turkish form of the name Alexander is <iskender>.  This is a fine name 
for your period. [5, 6, 7]  We found no evidence that bynames based on the 
name of a woman's son were used in sixteenth-century Turkish, though we 
have found an apparent eighteenth-century example. [8]  However, bynames 
that identified a woman as her father's daughter were very common, at least 
in formal circumstances. These bynames were based on the Arabic form and 
used the Arabic word <bint>. [5, 9, 10]  For example, a Turkish woman named 
<Emine> whose father was named <iskender bin Mehmed> could have been known 
as <Emine bint iskender>; we believe this name would have been pronounced 
\eh-mee-NEH bint ee-SKEN-dair\.

Here is a brief list of Turkish men's names, in case you would like to 
choose a different name for your father: [5]

Ahmed
Ali
Davud
Hasan
HIzIr
ilyas
isa
iskender
KasIm
KIlavuz
Kismet
Mehmed
Mehmi
Muharrem
Musa
Mustafa
Nasuh
Nebi
Sunduk
Yahs,i
Yunus
Yusuf

With some more research, we may be able to find more Turkish men's names; 
if you're interested in that possibility, or if you'd like to know the 
pronunciation of one of the names we've already found, please write to us 
again.

The Ottoman Turks often included titles in their names. [2]  We found 
several examples of women using the title <Hatun>, which means "Lady" or 
"Madam", as a byname. [5, 12]  For instance, a woman named <Emine> whose 
father was called <iskender bin Mehmed> might be known as <Emine Hatun bint 
iskender> or simply <Emine Hatun>. [13]

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 Pedro de Alcazar, Arval Benicoeur, 
Devora bat Shimshon, Raquel Buenaventura, Talan Gwynek, Da'ud ibn Auda, 
Maridonna Benvenuti, Sion Andreas, Juliana de Luna, Adelaide de Beaumont, 
Julie Stampnitzky, and Aryanhwy merch Catmael.

For the Academy,

Ursula Georges
22 Dec. 2001

------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

[1] Annemarie Schimmel, _Islamic Names_ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University 
Press, 1989). p. 32.

[2] James Lindsay, "History 216: The Islamic World" (WWW: Colorado State 
University, 2001) 
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Hist/pers/lindsay/216syl.html.  Dated 
examples of Ottoman names containing titles may be found in reference [5] 
below.

[3] Salahuddin Ahmed, A Dictionary of Muslim Names (New York: New York 
University Press, c.1999). p. 83. <Iskandar>.

[4] Da'ud ibn Auda, "Arabic Naming Practices and Names List," _Compleat 
Anachronist_ #51, "The Islamic World" (Milpitas: SCA, Inc, Autumn 1990; 
WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/daud/arabic-naming/

[5] Yvonne J. Seng, "Invisible Women: Residents of Early Sixteenth-Century 
Istanbul", _Women in the Medieval Islamic World_, ed. Gavin R.G. Hambly 
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998).  We have compiled lists of masculine 
and feminine names from the official records discussed in this article; the 
article includes an example of <iskender>.

[6] Marshall G.S. Hodgson, _The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in 
a World Civilization_ (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), 
vol. 2 pp. 559-560.  In the fifteenth century, an Albanian man brought up 
by the Ottomans and known as <Iskender Beg> or <Scanderbeg> led a revolt.

[7] "Encyclopedia of the Rulers of Egypt: The Ottomans", (WWW: State 
Information Service, Egypt) http://www.sis.gov.eg/rulers/html/en13.htm.  An 
Ottoman governor named <Iskander> ruled Egypt from 1556-1559.

[8] Farima Zarinebaf-Shahr, "Women and the Public Eye in Eighteenth-Century 
Istanbul" in _Women in the Medieval Islamic World_. <Um Kolsum>, 1768. 
There is no way to tell from context whether this name is a byname 
identifying the woman's son, a borrowing of an Arabic byname such as <Umm 
Kulthum> as a name, or completely unrelated to the Arabic practice.

[9] Leslie Pierce, "'She is trouble . . . and I will divorce her': Orality, 
Honor, and Representation in the Ottoman Court of 'Aintab" in _Women in the 
Medieval Islamic World_.

[10] Lindsay.

[11] _Redhouse Portable Dictionary; English - Turkish, Turkish - English_. 
(Istanbul: Redhouse Press, 1975), s.v. emin.  Note that <emin> might itself 
be borrowed from Arabic.

[12] H.C Hony and Fahir Iz, _The Oxford Turkish-English Dictionary_, Third 
Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984) s.v. hatun.

[13] The Society for Creative Anachronism's College of Arms generally does 
not register names that imply a claim to a specific status.  From our 
research it is not clear what status, if any, use of the title <Hatun> 
implies; however, if your main goal is to register your name with the 
College of Arms, you may wish to pick a different byname.

[14] Hodgson, vol. 1 pp. 14-15.