ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3041
http://www.s-gabriel.org/3041
************************************

23 May 2005
From: Gunnvor Silfraharr (no address)

Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! 

You asked us to help you choose an Old Norse feminine name meaning
"Sefa daughter of Li/na".  You also asked whether any of the bynames
<haustmyrkr>, <Spak>, <inn tryggvi>, and <{th}egjandi> are appropriate
with this name.  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 represents an acute
accent mark on the preceding letter.  The {th} represents the
character "thorn", which resembles a lower-case <p> overlapping a
lower-case <b>, so that they share a single loop.

You mentioned that you had found <Sefa> in Lena Peterson's Nordiskt
runnamnslexikon [1].  This name is from two runic inscriptions in
So"dermanland, Sweden ca. 1010-1050 [2].  The <o"> here represents an
o-umlaut.  The inscriptions give the name in runic characters very
much like the ones labeled "Swedish Runes from 1000AD", shown at:

  http://www.arild-hauge.com/esruner.htm

Notice that the tables for the various runic alphabets shown on this
page identify each rune with a Roman letter; we will use that labeling
in this letter in discussing the runic spelling of your name.  We
should stress that this is a modern scholarly convention, not a
notation that would have been used in our period.  

Using this convention, the runes in these inscriptions have the runic
name as <sifa>.  It's hard to be sure exactly what name is actually
represented by runic <sifa>, because the <i> rune in particular can
represent several different sounds.  We know of no reason, however, to
doubt Peterson's choice of <Sefa> as the normalized form of this name [3].

We have not found a form of <Sefa> used in western Scandinavia; and
since we have not found a word corresponding directly to OSw
<s{ae}ver> or <si{ae}ver> in Old West Norse, the name <Sefa> is much
less likely in the western dialect [4].  We can therefore recommend it
as good re-creation only in Sweden, and, since all of the evidence for
the name is from the early 11th century, only in that period.  The
name was probably pronounced roughly \SEH-bhah\, where \eh\ represents
the sound of <e> in <neck> and <vend>, and \bh\ represents a voiced
bilabial fricative used in Spanish <lobo> "wolf" and <uva> "grape". 
It is the sound made by positioning your lips to say a \b\, but
relaxing them slightly so that the air escapes.  This sound does not
occur in English, but if you find it awkward, the ordinary English \v\
sound is a reasonable approximation.


The given name <Li/na> and the bynames <haustmyrkr>, <Spak>, <inn
tryggvi>, and <{th}egjandi> are from Old West Norse sources.  Thus,
they aren't necessarily suitable for an early 11th century Old Swedish
context, and even those that are suitable may need to be modified a
bit.  Despite these difficulties, however, we can offer qualified
support for bynames similar to <Spak> and <inn tryggvi> and perhaps
for a byname meaning "daughter of Lina".

We'll begin with the more questionable ones.  We know of only one
instance of the rather odd byname <haustmyrkr> "autumn dark, autumn
gloom": it was borne by one of the settlers who claimed land in
Iceland [8].  It is not a standard Old Norse word, but a compound of
<haust> "autumn" and <myrkr> "dark, gloom"; it may even be a one-time
compound found only in this byname.  We think that hypothesizing a
byname formed from the Old Swedish cognates of Old Icelandic <haust>
and <myrkr> goes well beyond the bounds of safe conjecture.  Indeed,
given the odd character of <haustmyrkr> and the fact that its
significance is unknown, we would hesitate to recommend it even in an
Icelandic context.

The byname <{th}egjandi> (or <{th}egiandi>) is the masculine present
participle of the verb <{th}egia> "to be silent", so it's literally
"being silent".  We found two people who bore the the byname, a jarl
of Orkney in the later 9th century and a Norwegian in the very late
13th century [8].  The Old Icelandic feminine form is <{th}egianda>,
but we found no examples of it as a byname.  A cognate verb existed in
Old Swedish, with the feminine present participle <{th}ighiande>, but
we found no evidence of bynames of either gender formed from its
present participle [9].  As such participial bynames seem in any case
to be quite rare, we cannot recommend the byname <{th}ighiande> as
good historical re-creation.

The name <Li/na> is found in Iceland ca. 1100 and ca. 1150 [10].  Our
best source holds that the name is actually <Lina> -- the two are
indistinguishable in the available sources -- and suggests that it is
an original byname from Old Icelandic <linr> "gentle, mild; agreeable,
pleasant".  We have not found the name in Old East Scandinavian, but
what appears to be the corresponding masculine name, <Lini>, appears
in two Swedish runic inscriptions of the early 11th century [11, 12].
 Moreover, there is an Old Swedish adjective <lin>, cognate and
synonymous with Old Icelandic <linr>, and <lina> is the grammatical
form that would have been used as a feminine byname and perhaps
eventually a given name [13].  Thus, the name <Lina> certainly could
have been formed in Old Swedish, though we have no evidence that it was.

Metronymics -- bynames that identified someone as her mother's
daughter or his mother's son -- were far less common than patronymics,
but they were occasionally used in at least some parts of the Viking
world [14].  Our early Swedish sources aren't very extensive, but
without much trouble we found such examples as <Thorth Dotur sun>
"Thordh son of Dottir" from the 12th century and a <Bryniolfuer
Botilldar son> "Bryniolf Bothild's son" from the second half of the
13th century [15].  (<Dottir> and <Bothild> are both feminine names.)
 The Old Swedish feminine metronymic from a hypothetical Old Swedish
<Lina> would be <Linu dottir>.  (<Linu> is the genitive case --
roughly, the possessive form -- of <Lina>, so that <Linu> is roughly
equivalent to English <Lina's>.)  This name is pronounced roughly
\LEE-noo DOAT-teer\, where \ee\ represents the sound of <ee> in
<feed>, \oo\ represents the sound of <oo> in <cool> and <moon>, and
\oa\ represents the sound of <oa> in <boat>.

To sum up, we have not found the feminine name <Lina> in Old East
Norse, but there is some evidence that its masculine counterpart was
used, and it would have been a natural formation.  Metronymics were
fairly uncommon, but we have evidence from a bit after the period in
which <Sefa> is found that they were occasionally used in Sweden.  An
Old Swedish metronymic byname <Linu dottir> is therefore far from the
best historical re-creation, but there is nothing inherently
implausible about it.

The byname <inn tryggvi> "the true, the faithful" is a masculine Old
Icelandic form; we have one example from the late 9th or early 10th
century and another of unknown date [16].  The same root also gave
rise to the Old West Norse names <Tryggr> and <Tryggvi>, the Old
Swedish runic <tryggR>, and the Old Danish <Tryggi>, all masculine
[17].  Moreover, there was an Old Danish byname cognate with Old
Icelandic <tryggvi> that produced the Danish surname <Trygge> [18]. 
Given this wide distribution of the root and the existence of an Old
Swedish adjective <trygger> corresponding to Old Icelandic <tryggr>,
it would not be surprising to find a cognate byname in Sweden in the
early 11th century; the feminine Old Swedish form would be <hin
tryggia> [19].  (The <i> in <tryggia> is not an error: the word
underwent a somewhat different development in Old Icelandic and Old
Swedish.)  

This name is pronounced \hin TRU"G-yah\, where \U"\ the sound of
u-umlaut as in German <fu"llen> "to fill" and <u> as in French <sur>
"on".  More precisely, it is the vowel you get by pronouncing the <ee>
in <fill> with your lips positioned as if you were saying <oo> as in
<fool>.  This sound is not found in English.

The hypothetical Old Swedish byname <hin tryggia> would clearly be a
better historical re-creation if we had evidence of feminine names or
bynames formed from the same root.  We do, however, have a literary
quotation in which the word is used to describe a woman: <trygg ok
go/{dh} kona> "a faithful and good woman" [20].  The notation {dh}
represents the character "edh", which looks like a backward <6> with a
crossbar on the riser.  On the whole, therefore, we think that <Sefa
hin tryggia> is a possible Swedish name of the early 11th century.

This finally brings us to the nickname <Spak>.  In this spelling, it
is actually a prefixed byname, placed before the given name; an
example from the 10th century is the Icelander <Spak-Bersi> "Wise
Bersi", also called <Bersi hinn spaki> "Bersi the wise" [21].  (The
adjective <spakr> means both "quiet, gentle" and "wise, often with the
notion of prophetic visions", but there is some evidence that as a
byname it more often has the latter sense.)  In the more usual form
exemplified by <Bersi hinn spaki>, the byname was quite common [22]. 
We even have one example of it in the feminine form <en spaka>, borne
by an Icelandic woman who died in 1031 [21].  This name is pronounced
\hin SPAH-kah\.

The byname is also found in Old East Norse: in some form it was borne
by a Danish king who died in 1146, and it is found in Old Swedish as
<Spaker> and <Spake> [22].  These are masculine; the Old Swedish
feminine counterpart would be <hin spaka> [23].  Short of an actual
example, the case for <hin spaka> as a possible Old Swedish byname of
the early 11th century is about as strong as it could be.


In summary, we believe that the names <Sefa Linu dottir>, <Sefa hin
tryggia>, and <Sefa hin spaka> are possible names for an 11th century
Swedish woman.  We want to emphasize, though, that this conclusion is
based to a very considerable extent on indirect evidence and plausible
inference.  Thus, it is inherently more uncertain than one based
entirely on attested forms.


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. We were
assisted in researching and writing this letter by Arval Benicoeur,
Kolozsvari Arpadne Julia and Mor inghean Chathail. 

For the Academy, 

Talan Gwynek and Gunnvor Silfraharr
16 May 2005

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

References 

[1]  Lena Peterson. Nordiskt runnamnslexikon. Spra*k- och
folkminnes-institutet.  
http://www.sofi.se/SOFIU/runlex/  S.nn. <Sefa>, <Lini>.

[2] Samnordisk runtextdatabas.  
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-61277/rundata/1.htm

  So"14$ <rakna * raisti * stain * {th}ansi * at * suin * 
  buta * sit * auk * sifa * auk * r-knburk * at * sit * 
  fa{th}ur * ku{th} * hil[b]i * at * [hat]s * uit * iak * 
  {th}et * uaR * sui- * uestr * mi{th} * kuti> 
  "Ragna raised this stone in memory of Sveinn, her 
  husbandman, and Sifa/S{ae}fa and Ragnbjo,rg in memory of 
  their father.  May God help his spirit. I know that 
  Sveinn was in the west with Gautr/Knu/tr." 
  http://www.raa.se/kmb/showdetails.asp?id=3140

  So"96 <... ... -(t)ain : {th}ansi : at : begli : fa{th}ur : 
  sii :: buanta :: sifuR :: han : uaR : fa... ...>
  "... this stone in memory of Beglir, his father, 
  Sifa/S{ae}fa's husbandman. He travelled(?) ..."
  http://tinyurl.com/dschq

[3] If the etymology connecting the name with Old Swedish <si{ae}ver>,
<s{ae}ver> "calm, self-possessed, tranquil, gentle, leisurely" is
correct, <Sefa> is probably a reasonably good representation of the
early 11th century name.  The notation {ae} represents an a-e
ligature, which looks like the letters <a> and <e> pushed together.

[4] We have not found an Old West Norse form of <Sefa>, or for that
matter of its masculine counterpart, <Sefi>.  Moreover, the proposed
etymology suggests that these names, like many others, began as
descriptive bynames.  (A very clear example of the phenomenon is the
masculine name <Gamall>, originally a byname "old" [5].)  Although
there are related words in Old West Norse, the closest being the verb
<sefa> "to soothe, to calm", they do not appear to include an
adjective and so are much less likely to have produced a corresponding
byname or given name [6, 7].   For this reason we can recommend the
name <Sefa> only in an Old Swedish context and, since all of the
evidence for the name is from the early 11th century, only in that period.

[5] Fellows-Jensen, Gillian.  _Scandinavian Personal Names in
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire_.  (Copenhagen. Akademisk Forlag. 1968). 
pp. 89-95.

[6]  Zoe"ga, Geir T.  _A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic_. 
(Oxford: Clarendon. 1910).  S.v. <sefa>.

[7] Svenska Adademoens Ordbok.  (WWW: OSA-projektet, 2005).
http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/  S.v. <sa"v> (adj.)

[8] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_. 
(Uppsala: 1920-21). S.vv. <Haustmyrkr>, <{TH}egiandi>.  Here <a*>
represents the letter a-ring, an <a> with a small circle over the top
of the letter, and <a"> represents an a-umlaut.

[9] Noreen, Adolph.  _Altnordische Grammatik II: Altschwedische
Grammatik_.  (Halle: Max Niemeyer. 1904).  Pp. 343, 347. Sects. 454,
455.1 Anm. 2.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oswed_noreen_about.html

[10] 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. <Lina>.

[11] Peterson, op. cit. (see note [1]), s.n. <Lini>.

[12] Samnordisk runtextdatabas, op. cit. (see note [2])

  Hs14A <frumunt/hrumunt rit... staina {th}ina| 
  |aftiR fikiulf-/hikiulf- */* brisa sun */* in brisi uas 
  lina sun : in lini uas unaR sun : in un ua... ...faks| 
  |sun i(n) (u)faka  {th}uris| |sun krua uas mu{th}iR 
  fikiulf.../hikiulf... in {th}a barlaf in {th}a ku{th}run 
  */* frumunt/hrumunt fikiulfa/hikiulfa sun fa{th}i runaR 
  {th}isaR : uiR sutum stin {th}ina nur i balas...in : 
  "Freymundr/Hro/{dh}mundr erected this/these 
  stone/s in memory of Fe/gylfir/He/-Gylfir, Bresi's/Bri/si's 
  son. And Bresi/Bri/si was Lini's(?) son. And Lini(?) was 
  Unn's son. And Unn was O/feigr's son. And O/feigr was 
  {TH}o/rir's son. Gro/a var Fe/gylfir's/He/-Gylfir's mother. 
  And then <barlaf>. And then Gu{dh}ru/n. Freymundr/
  Hro/{dh}mundr Fe/gylfir's/He/-Gylfir's son coloured these 
  runes. We sought this stone in the north in Balasteinn."
  http://www.raa.se/kmb/showdetails.asp?id=1367 

  Hs10 [...-...l]f runaR sun lina (s)tin {th}ina 
  f...({th})... sum sunan i na... fur [paragraph mark] 
  ...a...i({th})bnu + a...t... st[in {th}ina] aftiR sunu 
  sina {th}ria fru{th}mar/hru{th}mar in {th}(o)...flt ' 
  uma(h)l [paragraph mark] ... [paragraph mark] in brusi 
  asbiarnaR sun fa[{th}i] : runaR {th}i...[-] 
  [paragraph mark] ... ra{th}a *
  "... the runes, Lini's son, this stone ... who in the 
  south ... this stone in memory of his three sons, 
  Fro/{dh}marr/Hro/{dh}marr and ... And Bru/si A/sbjo,rn's 
  son coloured these runes. ... interpret(?)."
  http://www.raa.se/kmb/showdetails.asp?id=1381 

[13] Noreen, op. cit. (see note [9]), Pp. 231-233, 349.  Sects. 298, 458.

[14] Gu{dh}mundsson, Bar{dh}i. _The Origin of the Icelanders_. 
Translated and with an introduction and notes by Lee M. Hollander.
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1967).  Pp. 26-31.

  This author believed there were only 34 women in Iceland 
  whose sons used their mother's name as a matronymic, and 
  most of these lived in the northern and western districts 
  of Iceland, including <Eilif Gu{dh}runarson>, 
  <Hrafn Gu{dh}runarson>, <Stein Herdi/sarson>, 
  <Bersi Skald-To/rfuson>, <Kormak Dolluson>, and 
  <Ofeig Jarnger{dh}sson>.  The notation {dh} represents 
  the character 'edh', which looks like a backward <6> with 
  a crossbar on the riser.

[15] Sveriges Medeltida Personnamn. (WWW: Spra*k- och
folkminnesinstitutet.  Accessed 24 Apr 2005).
http://www.dal.lu.se/sofi/smp/smp.htm  S.nn. <Dottir>, <Bothild>.

[16] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (see
note [8]), s.vv. <Tryggvi>, <Sneypir>.

[17] 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.n. <Tryggr>.

[18] Knudsen Gunnar, Marius Kristiansen, & Rikard Hornby.  _Danmarks
Gamle Personnavne_.  Vol II: Tilnavne.  (Copenhagen: 1949-64).  S.n.
<Trygge>.

[19] Noreen, op. cit. (see note [9]), pp. 348-349, 391, 401, Sects.
457-8, 505, 510.1

[20] Cleasby, Richard and Gu{dh}brandr Vigfusson.  _An
Icelandic-English Dictionary_.  2nd ed.  (Oxford: Clarendon.  1957). 
P. 643, s.v. <tryggr>.

[21] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla"ndska Personbinamn fra*n Medeltiden_ (see
note [8]), s.vv. <Spak-Bersi>, <Spaki>, <Spaka>.

The article <hin> was often written <en> in the early manuscripts, but
this does not seem to have indicated a change in pronunciation.

[22] Knudsen, Kristiansen, & Hornby, op. cit. (see note [18]), s.n.
<Spak>.

[23] Noreen, op. cit. (see note [9]), p. 348, Sect. 458.