Medieval Naming Guides: Pages to Avoid

WWW Names Pages for Medievalists to Avoid

by the Academy of Saint Gabriel

Last updated 9 Mar 2005

People have lots of different reasons for compiling lists of names, and most of them don't result in good sources for medieval names. Baby-name lists are almost always compiled without reference to historical usage. Genealogical databases usually list names in standardized and modernized spellings and forms. Character-name lists for gamers or novelists may bear some relation to historical naming, but they are aimed at modern audiences with modern expectations. Even scholarly translations of medieval documents commonly render names in modern English spellings. Any of these lists might include historical names in authentic forms, but it's almost always impossible to sort out the modern names from the historical ones.

When you are faced with a name list, here are some signs that it is probably unreliable as a source of medieval names:

No dates.
No list of sources where the author found the names.
The title of the list includes the word baby.
There is a meaning given for every name.
Languages of origin are given with unscholarly terms like Teutonic or Celtic.
There is no variation in the spelling of names, i.e. every William is spelled the same.

Here is a list of some websites that offer name lists that you should avoid if you are looking for medieval names. They are not useful, or are misleading, or are erroneous. Note that some of these sites are fine pieces of work for their intended purposes, but those purposes were unrelated to historical documentation, and the work is therefore not useful for the re-creationist.

We haven't listed name-your-baby sites like this one. There are dozens of them, and we haven't seen any that contain any reliable historical information. Instead, we've focused on the sites that you might mistakenly believe to be good, historical references.

General Name Lists

Kate Monk's Onomastikon, previously at http://www.flick.com/onomastikon/ and http://www.fairacre.demon.co.uk
A very large collection of name lists from many different cultures around the world, intended for gamers looking for character names. An enormous amount of research went into the construction of this site, but the author chose to give no information on which names were taken from which sources. Her sources are a hodge-podge of scholarly tomes, baby-name books, and everything in between. The more focused lists -- like those under Medieval English Names -- are better than average, but can only be taken as a starting point. They can't be trusted without independent verification.
Eponym
Links to baby-name lists all over the web and an index to name lists from cultures all over the world. It includes pointers into our libraries, Kate Monk's pages, and all sorts of other odd compilations. It does index some useful sites, but there's no way to judge the quality of what you'll find at the other end of the link, and certainly no attempt to identify the pages that are useful for our purposes. If you find something you think might be useful, drop us a line and we'll be happy to take a look at it.
Ars Magica Names Database, currently unavailable.
As on-line name lists go, this one was better than most. It described itself as an effort to provide name lists for various parts of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. It didn't give its sources, though, so each name had to be independently verified.
Articles on Surnames from various cultures.
This page is part of a website called Heraldry on the Internet. The links lead to articles at many different sites. They vary considerably in quality, but are mostly focussed on modern surnames and their origins. No dates, few references. We have not found any of these articles useful for medieval name research.
Society of Kabalarians of Canada Baby Naming site.
This page does not even claim to provide historical background about the meaning of a name. Instead, they use a system which assigns a numerical value to each letter of a name and assigns the name a meaning based on the sum of those values. Obviously, these meanings are not related to the etymology or history of a name, and so it is useless for our purposes.
Whisper Kitty's Given Name List
Intended for genealogists, it is a list of modern names from many different cultures, with no dates or other historical information.
Behind the Name, the Etymology and History of First names, formerly called The Etymology of First Names and formerly at www.pacificcoast.net/~muck/etym.
Purported origins of names, at a slightly higher level than most name-your-baby books, but not at all useful for choosing a medieval name. Tangwystyl noted the name-lists themselves are fairly flawed in that neither sources nor usable historic citations are given and many of the "meanings" and origins are simply erroneous. The listings also include modern and invented names (I ran across <Galadriel> in my brief browse). Definitely not a place to browse for historic names.
Surnames: What's in a Name?, currently unavailable.
Undated derivations of surnames, based on Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges' A Dictionary of Surnames, which is known to be unreliable. The original copy is gone; I've found excerpts in various places: here and here.
BabyCenter Baby Names
A name-your-baby list that some people may find misleading. It offers lists of names derived from various languages, but of course gives no sources or support. You can't trust that any name in one of their lists existed in that language before 1600.
20,000 Names and Surname Web
A popular name-your-baby site associated with a large origin-of-your-surname and genealogy site. Neither offers anything for the historical re-enactor. 20,000 Names includes lists of names by culture or language of origin and literary association; but they are completely unreliable. There are surnames listed as given names, names listed under the wrong language, etc. Avoid this site.
IVillage.com babynamefinder
Another name-your-baby site. It has no historical value at all. It gives languages of origin for each name, but these are often incorrect. Many of the "meanings" are wrong.
Middle Eastern & Islamic Names
Middle Eastern Dance Resource Guide: Names
This site offers stage-names for dancers. Although it advertises itself as a list of "Middle Eastern Names", it contains names purportedly drawn Native American culture, Asian Indian culture, and random parts of Europe. The site includes an article Names for Dancers and Other Graceful Souls which presents a mixture of facts, fiction, and nonsense about names. It has a bibliography consisting mostly of baby-name books, most of which are known to be rife with errors and inventions. There are a few good sources mixed in, but the author of the list does not indicate which names come from which sources, and of course gives no dated references.
al-Mustar'ib
This site is a collection of information on Arabic culture, intend for SCA re-creators. It includes links to several name lists on the web, none of which is a reliable source for medieval names. We've reviewed each of them separately: Eponym, the Middle Eastern Dance Resource Guide names page, About al-Islam and Muslims names page, Islam list of female Muslim names. Eren's name book has disappeared from the net; it was essentially a name-your-baby list without pretension to historical accuracy.
About Islam and Muslims offers several pages on Islamic names.
The first two pages may be reasonably reliable, since the names seem to be drawn directly from the Koran and the Old Testament, but they do not actually cite any source, so they cannot be trusted without independent verification that any particular name was actually used in period. The last two pages contain some names which were used in our period and some that were not. No sources or dates are given, so there is no way to know which category any name falls into. These two lists were duplicated elsewhere.
Islamzine (formerly Islam 101) lists of female and male names and their meanings.
Duplicates of two pages at About Islam and Muslims.
'Celtic' or Irish Names

Fiona Hyland's Irish Names
Do not use this site as a source for Society names. It is a name-your-baby site, with no pretension to being a source for historical information. It gives no dates or sources, mixes Gaelic and English spellings without identifying them, and contains many modern names that were not used in our period.
Celtic Goddesses, currently unavailable.
Completely unreliable. The list includes some Gaelic names, some English spellings of Gaelic names, some non-Gaelic names. Some of the names are purely legendary, some are purely modern, and some are masculine. No sources are given.
Celtic, Gaelic, Irish, & Scottish Names
This page offers a collection of lists intended for writers choosing names for their fictional characters. That alone should warn you that it isn't a good source for our purposes. Names appear to be taken without credit from such unreliable or semi-reliable sources as Gruffudd Welsh Personal Names, and Bice Names for the Cornish. The author divides names into categories: Irish, Scottish, Gaelic, and Celtic. This sub-division is meaningless: There is no such language as Celtic, and Gaelic is the language spoken in Ireland and parts of Scotland. Each list is a hodge-podge of names from various sources. Some are unquestionably modern inventions. Derivations and meanings are given, but they aren't consistent from one list to the next. A bibliography, is provided; it contains some excellent sources (O'Corrain and Maguire, MacLysaght) and some terrible ones (Sierra, Ellefson). Some of the names listed are excellent, but there is no way to distinguish them from the rest. Do not use this site as a source for Society names.
Irish Names and Places, site closed.
These lists of Irish names are poorly researched. Most of the names are modern spellings of modern Irish Gaelic names; a few are Old Irish or English spelling. The author used some excellent sources, but apparently relied just as heavily on modern baby-naming dictionaries. Many of the names are modern inventions. In some cases, early and late spellings of the same name are listed as separate names. These pages are useless for our purposes.
Choosing a Scottish name for your child
This page is fine for its stated purpose, but useless for medieval re-creation. recommends two books on Scottish names, Leslie Dunkling's Scottish Christian Names and Peadar Morgan's Ainmean Chloinne: Scottish Gaelic Names for Children. Both books are good guides to modern practice, but neither addresses historical naming customs or usage. Neither gives period spellings, and they use modern spellings of names for historical people. The webpage also offers a link to a modern list of most popular Scottish names, which is useless for choosing a medieval name.
Irish Names
A better-than-average name-your-baby site. It identifies the sources of some names -- which ones were originally place names or surnames (and thus probably not use as given names in our period), which ones are modern coinages, etc. -- and has a separate list of "Traditional" names, many of which are period names. It also has a bibliography, but doesn't indicate which names came from which sources. All in all, not a bad place to start, but you'll need other references to verify when a particular name was used.
Gaelicnet, currently unavailable.
This Celtic cultural site offers lists of Irish and Welsh names (and has a link to a list of Scottish names that was missing when I looked). Neither has any historical value. The Irish name list contains names of modern origin like Saoirse, English names like Bridget and Malachy, and at least one Welsh literary name, Bronwen. The Welsh name list resembles the contents of Gruffudd's Welsh Personal Names, but doesn't have that author's crucial historical annotations. Many of the names are modern.
The Celtic Cauldron Celtic Name Compendium, no longer available.
Lists of masculine and feminine given names, based on a collection of modern name-your-baby books. This source has no pretension to historical value.
The Irish Studies Pages Traditional Irish Names
A catalogue of names apparently copied from a variety of books and other websites. No sources are given. Modern spellings, English names, and other foreign names are mixed with early medieval Irish names without any indication of origin. Useless as anything other than a name-your-baby list.
20,000 Names
This large site includes lists of "Celtic", Gaelic, and Welsh names for boys and girls. They contain many errors, including names assigned to the wrong language (e.g. Dierdre as a Welsh name), incorrect derivations (e.g. Grainne glossed as "grace"), and incorrect associations (e.g. Ariana associated with the Welsh word for "silver"). In short, this is a typical name-your-baby site, valueless for our purposes.
The New Order of Druids Celtic Names Glossary
Collections names for various "Celtic" cultures, including General Celtic names. These lists are highly unreliable. Names are listed for the wrong language. Names from other languages are incorrectly attributed to Celtic languages. Many of the etymologies are incorrect or simply nonsense (e.g. Adam is presented as an anglicized version of Irish Ádamh). Do not use this site as a source of medieval names.
Other Cultures' Names
A Collation of Viking Names, by Stephen Francis Wyley
A collection of names gleaned from sagas, runestone databases, etc. The source of each name is identified, but because many of sources are not particularly accurate, the result is not useful for our purposes. Many names are given in anglicized spellings or in English translation. There are some transcription errors in the bynames section.
The Old Norse Name, by Nara no Jebu
A truly awful source: rife with errors but packaged so as to make it seem reliable. The introduction is largely plagiarized from Geirr Bassi Haraldsson's excellent The Old Norse Name, with a few changes that introduce major errors. For example, the author changed Bassi's sentence:
to:
This is terrible advice, because the modern editions of the sagas that have indices generally modernize and anglicize names, making them very poor guides to medieval naming. The list of names in the article is not from Bassi, and it is full of typos, incorrect translations, and fundamental errors. For example, the author suggests that the first element of a Norse dithematic name determine its gender; that is simply wrong.
Renaissance German Names
This site, prepared for Society use, contains a long list of names copied from various modern history books. The names are a mixture of Dutch, Low German, High German and borrowings from French, Italian, and various Slavic languages. Spellings have been modernized in many cases and many of the feminine names have no apparent source. At some point, someone seems to have assumed that any masculine name could be feminized. At least some of the names are definitely not period.
1066 List of Knights, at Olive Tree Enterprises
This list, which we previously though was a good source, turns out to be spurious. According to Todd Farmerie on soc.history.medieval, it was compiled hundreds of years after the fact, and in fact only a couple dozen of the Conqueror's companions are known from contemporary sources.
Scythian Vocabulary and Names, by Fred Hamori, Umit Ertim, Marc Hubey, and Elana Romanova
We recommend against trusting this discussion at all. Other publications by some of the same authors have been thoroughly discredited.