ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2829 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2829 ************************************ 22 Jun 2004 From: Femke de Roas Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked us if would be an appropriate name for a 15th century woman living in Glasgow, Scotland. Scotland in your period was home to two distinct cultures: Highland Gaelic and Lowland Scots. These two cultures spoke different languages, had different naming customs, and were generally quite separate. The burghs (towns) of Scotland were part of Lowland culture; there were some Gaels living in some burghs, but the language used in the burghs was overwhelmingly Scots, which was closely related to contemporary English. Gaels living in burghs are identified in records of your period by Scots adaptations of their Gaelic names. is a Scots name, as we will explain in more detail below; and is a Scots rendering of a Gaelic name. A woman bearing these names could have been a Lowlander descended from Gaels (her family having adopted as a family surname); or she could be a Gael whose Gaelic name was recorded in a Scots-language documents in this form. We will discuss both possibilities and examine which of the two is likely for 15th century Glasgow. is a Scots name that we've found in this spelling in 1561, somewhat after your period. The same name was recorded in many other spellings [1]: Jonete 1458 Jonet 1489, 1498, 1539-48, 1552, 1564 Jannet 1561 Jennet 1561 Johnett 1596 Jonette 1525 We can't rule out the possibility that was used in the late 15th century, but it would be better re-creation to use the spellings recorded in your period, and . This name was adopted into Gaelic in Scotland in the form , pronounced roughly \SHO-nit\. Gaelic women with this name are mentioned in 16th century Scots-language records, their names having been re-adapted to Scots spelling conventions [2]: Jonat 1571, 1572, 1575, 1585 Jannet 1561 Janat 1561, 1564 It's not impossible that some form of this name was used in Gaelic in the late 15th century, too; but we can't recommend that as the best re-creation. is one of many spellings of the modern surname , , etc. This name was originally a Gaelic patronymic, i.e. a surname that identified a man as his father's son. The Gaelic form was something very much like . A single man with this patronymic was identified in Scots-language documents of 1455 variously as , , , and . The name appears in some later Scots- language documents as [3]: Makalester 1500 Mackallister 1603 Patronymic surnames like were used literally in Gaelic until well after your period: A man was called because his father's given name was . A Gaelic woman would have been identified in Gaelic as her father's daughter: "daughter of Alasdair", pronounced \EEN-yen AH- lahs-dair\ up to the early 16th century, and \NEE-yen AH-lahs-dair\ by the mid-16th century in at least some dialects of Gaelic. is a fine Gaelic name for a 16th century Gaelic woman; it isn't as well-supported as a 15th century name. If a woman with this name lived in a burgh, she would be known to most of her neighbors by a Scots adaptation of her Gaelic name, which could have been something like [4]. By the late 15th century, inherited family names were common among Lowlanders, especially in the burghs. The descendents of Gaels who settled in Lowland burghs often adopted a Scots form of a Gaelic patronymic as their family name. So, for example, if a Gael named settled in a burgh in the mid-15th century, his grandchildren might have used as their family name. In this scenario, is a fine choice for a late-15th century Lowland woman descended from Gaelic ancestors. As we mentioned earlier, some Gaels settled in some of the Scottish burghs: Inverness, for example, had a significant Gaelic population, but most burghs were like Aberdeen which had essentially no resident Gaels [5]. We do not have evidence for such settlement in Glasgow, specifically, and the likelihood is that it did not have a Gaelic population. Therefore, the second scenario we've discussed, a Lowland woman descended from Gaelic ancestors, is the one more likely to result in a woman in Glasgow named . If you are specifically interested in re-creating a Gaelic woman, you might consider locating yourself in Inverness rather than Glasgow. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Effrick neyn Kenneoch, Mari neyn Brian, Arval Benicoeur, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Juliana de Luna. For the Academy, Femke de Roas June 22, 2004 _____________________________________________________________________ REFERENCES [1] Freidemann, Sara L., (Aryanhwy merch Catmael), "Names of women mentioned in the Perth Guildry Book 1464-1598," (WWW: privately published, 2003) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/perth.html [2] Krossa, Sharon L., "Scottish Gaelic Given Names" (WWW: privately published, 2000-2002). http://www.MedievalScotland.org/scotnames/gaelicgiven/ [3] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. Macalaster. [4] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.nn. Gillies, Macphail, Scapa, Macgillies, Kettle, Maccohenane, Gray, Fuktor, Mackessok, Nin, Africa, Beathag. and , c.1470 [5] Sharon L. Krossa, unpublished research.