ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2821 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2821 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* From: "C. L. Ward" 12 Apr 2004 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is appropriate as a Danish feminine name from the 10th century. Here is what we found. Throughout this letter, we'll use some special notation for letters that we can't easily include here. The slash following a vowel represents an acute accent mark on the preceding vowel. The {TH} represents the character 'thorn', which resembles a lower-case p overlapping a lower-case b, so that they share a single loop. The character {o"} represents an o-umlaut, while {a"} is an a-umlaut. The notation {dh} represents the character 'edh', which looks like a backward 6 with a crossbar on the riser, while {o,} represents o-ogonek, an 'o' with a backward-comma-shaped hook hanging from the bottom. The character {a*} represents an a-ring, the letter a with a small circle at the top. is an earlier form of . In Old East Scandinavian, the language spoken in Denmark and Sweden, the pronunciation of the initial vowel changed slightly to yield <{AE}> or instead of in many cases [1], although we're not certain if this change had already occurred by the 10th century. Adam of Bremen, for instance, already wrote in the 11th c. [2]. The name was also in early use in Old West Scandinavian, spoken in Norway, Iceland, and Scandinavia's Atlantic colonies, being common in Norway through the whole of the Middle Ages, with a couple of instances as early as the 9th c. It was also fairly common in Iceland in the 10th and 11th c., though later it became much less common [3]. The masculine name is a later medieval borrowing from Continental Germanic: most bearers of the name were foreign, though the name was naturalized in both Iceland and Norway in the later Middle Ages. The name was borrowed a bit earlier in Denmark, which had closer ties to the European Continent, and it may have entered Danish use in the 12th c., Icelandic in the 13th c., and Norwegian ca.1300 [3]. There are some more or less similar-sounding Old Norse masculine names that occur earlier in Scandinavia which you might consider. An Old Danish form of the name appears in a runic inscription ca.750/800-900, but it appears that the name was already falling into disuse in Denmark in the Viking period. Old Danish forms of also appear in several runic inscriptions. The name is found in Denmark by the 12th c. and corresponds to Old West Scandinavian . This name is related to the name of King Hrothgar of Denmark in the Old English poem 'Beowulf', which may represent an adaptation of Old Norse into Old English [4, 5]. Runic inscriptions from Sweden also have a couple of similar names, and [6]. Once you've chosen a name for your father, please write us again and we'll be happy to tell you the correct patronym, as well as give you the pronunciation of the name. In the tenth century, Danish names would have been written in runes, not in Roman letters. If you'd like more information on how to write them authentically, once you have selected a name for your father, we'll be happy work out suitable tenth-century runic spellings. 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 Talan Gwynek, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, Gunnvor silfraharr 12 April 2004 ----------------------------------------------------- References [1] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby, _Danmarks Gamle Personnavne_, Vol. I: Fornavne (Copenhagen: 1936-48). S.n. . [2] Adam of Bremen. _Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum_. Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum scholarum. (Hannoverae et Lipsiae: 1917). [Written ca. 1070. A history of the See of Hamburg and of the Christian missions in the North from A.D. 788 to 1072.] Adam of Bremen. _Adam of Bremen's History of the Archbishops of Hamberg-Bremen_. Francis J. Tschan, trans. (New York, 1959). [3] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931). S.n. . [4] Insley, John, _Scandinavian personal names in Norfolk: a survey based on medieval records and place-names_ (Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy; Stockholm : Distributor, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994). S.nn. , , . [5] The Danish King Hrothgar appears once in the Old English poem Widsith (l. 46, ) and also over 40 times in the Old English epic poem Beowulf (, ll. 61a, 64a, 235a, 277b, 335b, 339b, 356b, 367b, 371a, 396b, 407a, 417a, 456a, 614a, 653a, 826a, 863a, 925a, 1017a, 1321a, 1399a, 1407a, 1456b, 1483a, 1580a, 1592a, 1646b, 1687a, 1816b, 1840a, 1884b, 1899a, 1990b, 2010b, 2020b, 2129a, 2155b, 2351b. , ll. 152a, 662a, 717a, 1065b, 1236a, 1296a.) See: Beowulf. Labyrinth Library Old English Texts. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University. 10 December 1994. http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a4.1.html. Accessed 23 March 2004; Widsith. Labyrinth Library Old English Texts. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University. 19 October 1994. http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a3.11.html. Accessed 23 March 2004. [6] Peterson, Lena, "Nordiskt runnamnslexikon" (WWW: Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research, 2001) http://www.dal.lu.se/runlex/index.htm S.nn. , . -------- Correction by Aryanhwy, 23 August 2006: Corrected the fourth paragraph from to .