ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2912 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2912 ************************************ 29 Nov 2004 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wrote about a name appropriate for an Asturo-Leonese man living between 1200 and 1400. You were particularly interested in a name or a similar name meaning "Alexander who lives near a monumental cross". The name is a good choice for that period. We have found it in the 12th century [1] and the 15th c. [2] It is only reasonable that it was used also in your period of interest. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend a surname referring to a cross that is appropriate for your period. The surname appears late in our period, but we haven't found examples before the 15th century [3] and most were from the 16th century. [6] We believe that was a devotional name, adopted to demonstrate piety, rather than a locative byname based on a man's place of residence. In the period when we find many of our examples, some of them were definitely adopted for religious reasons [4]. We therefore believe that would be a fine name for a 15th or 16th century man, but not for the 13th-14th centuries you want to re-create. You can solve this problem by choosing a different surname. By far the most common type of byname in these examples is a patronymic, i.e. a surname that identified a man as his father's son. This could take the form of the father's given name used as a surname, as in or ; or the genitive (possessive) form of the father's given name, as in (son of Pelayo), (son of Marti/no). The slash represents an acute accent mark over the preceding letter. Here is a list of names that appear in our 14th century Leonese data. These are names of citizens - middle-class people - from Astorga [5], a town in Leon. The spellings have been modernized (unless marked by an asterisk). Dom Guiyelmo 1255 Pelayo Giro/n 1281 Pedro Pelays 1285 Gutier Pelays ca 1285 Esteban Felipe* 1315 Alfo/n Pe/rez 1317 Samuel, jew 1317 Guillermo Perez 1327 Pedro Marcos 1327 Pedro Domi/nguez 1344 Diego Felipez 1363 Diego A/lvarez (father) 1363 Iohan Pelays 1364 Garci/a Ferna/ndez 1373 Mose Gazo, jew 1373 Ruy Peres 1373 Alvar Marti/nez 1379 Francisco Marti/nez 1380 Juan Alfo/n 1393-1420 Diego A/lvarez (son) 1393-1420 If you like any of these name elements we can probably research them further and suggest a likely spelling for the period. You may also find of interest two lists of members of the Castillian Order of the Band, from 1332 and 1348, which would have included a number of men from the Astur-Leonese region. Members of the Order of the Band http://www.historiaviva.org/nombres/vanda-ing.shtml We 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 Juliana de Luna, Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, and Mor inghean Chathail. For the Academy, Leonor Martin & Aryanhwy merch Catmael 29 November 2004 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References: [1] http://www.s-gabriel.org/1554 [2] http://www.s-gabriel.org/2351 [3] We found only one 15th century example: . It appears in a work dated to 1443. Alfonso Marti/­nez de Toledo, _Atalaya de las Cro/nicas_, Electronic Texts and Concordances of the Madison Corpus of Early Spanish Manuscripts and Printings. Prepared by John ONeill. (Madison and New York, 1999). CD-ROM. (ISBN 1-56954-122-1). Corpus del Espan~ol (WWW: Mark Davies, 2001-02), s.n. . http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/ [4] , the companion and follower of Teresa of Avila, and , the Mexican nun and poet, both changed their names and adopted as a byname. At the same time other religious bynames become popular. [5] Gregoria Cavero Domi/nguez, _Las Cofradi/as en Astorga durante la Edad Media_, Universidad de Leo/n, 1992, pp.116, 240-247. [6] Elsbeth Anne Roth, "16th Century Spanish Names" (WWW: Self-published, 2002) http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~kvs/heraldry/spanish16/