ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1924 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1924 ************************************ 14 Feb 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked what elements might have been added to the 15th century Dutch name , and if certain other locative bynames are appropriate for that period. You also asked our opinion of your design for your arms, "Sable, three fleurs-de-lys Or within a bordure compony Or and azure." Here is what we have found. In a sampling of Dutch names from around your period, there are several men identified by two bynames. Almost all of those names include a patronymic byname, i.e. one that identifies the man as his father's son. A patronymic byname was formed from the father's given name in several ways: the father's name unmodified, the genitive (possessive) form of the father's name, or the genitive form of his name plus a word meaning "son". For example, if your father's name were , you might have been known as , , or [1, 3]. The word for "son" was sometimes added to the father's name as a suffix, spelled , , or [4]. Judging by the names in our sample that include more than one byname, the patronymic can be placed immediately after the given name, , or perhaps after another byname, . A name like would be a fine choice for your period. You could instead add an occupational or descriptive byname of some sort. We found several examples of occupational bynames, including "swordsmith", "the cook", and "the cooper". Descriptive bynames in our sample vary widely; they include "the big", "the fish", "with the eye", "finch", and "the younger, junior" [1]. If there's a particular occupation or simple descriptive term that appeals to you, we can look for an equivalent word in 15th century Dutch. The other locatives you asked us about were: Jan van Nijmegen Jan van Brusthem Jan van Gemert Jan van Leiden Jan van Liege Jan de Tournai These are all excellent names for your period, standard Dutch and French constructions. is in the province of Guelderland; its spelling varied widely. We have found several 15th century Dutch examples of the surname [4], so it's certainly a fine choice; but it fails your criterion that the name be easily pronounced. In your period, it was pronounced \N#-meh-gh@n\, where \#\ represents a vowel between \eh\ and \ay\, and \gh\ represents the voiced version of the rasping guttural in Scottish or German . One of our members, Walraven van Nijmegen, tells us that he has endless trouble getting people to pronounce it correctly. We found , a town just north of Helmond in Brabant. It was pronounced \GHEM-ert\. \GH\ is voiced equivalent of the \kh\ sound we described above. The modern appears in late period as ; it was near S. Truyen in the Bishopric of Liege. We would pronounce this name \BRU:-steh~\, where \U:\ is the German u-umlaut and \eh~\ is a nasalized \eh\. or is in the County of Holland; it is pronounced somewhere between \LAY-den\ and \LIE-den\, though in everyday speech the final \n\ would have been dropped. is the French name of a city on the river that divides Hainault and Flanders; its Dutch name was \DOR-nick\. is another French name; the Dutch name of the city was , pronounced \LOIK\ [5]. \OI\ represents a diphthong that doesn't exist in English, which you can make by saying with tightly rounded lips and with your tongue pressed to your bottom teeth [6]. For place names that have French and Dutch forms, we recommend that you use either the French form with the French preposition , like , or the Dutch form with the Dutch preposition, like . Mixtures of the two languages are not impossible in your culture, but they were less likely. On the other hand, we've found numerous examples of Flemish names which mix a Dutch given name with a French locative surname, like 1514 and 1588 [1], so is a fine choice. The pure Dutch form of the same name would have been . Once you pick a place name to use, if you're interested in period spellings of the name, write us again and we may be able to find some. We'll probably be able to that pretty quickly, so don't worry about another six week wait. Your design for your arms is perfect for your period. Fleurs-de-lys were common in Flemish armory, and we have found several examples of bordures compony in a 16th century Flemish roll of arms [2]. As far as we can tell, you should be able to register these arms with the SCA College of Arms. 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, Modar Neznanich, Antonio Miguel Santos de Borja, Maridonna Benvenuti, Zenobia Naphtali, Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, and Barak Raz. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 14 Feb 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Luana de Grood, "Flemish Given Names from Bruges, 1400-1600", (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996). http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/bruges/ [2] Walraven van Nijmegen, "Analysis, Armorial, and Ordinary of Armory Recorded in Paul Bergmans' Armorial De Flandre du XVIme Siecle" (WWW: Brian R. Speer, Privately published, 1997) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1336/bergmans.html [3] Van der Velden, G. M., _Het Oudste Cijnregister van de Abdij van Berne uit 1376_ ('s-Hertogenbosch: Rijksarchief in Noord-Brabant, 1982). Examples of patronymics with include: p.69 Johannes Nouden soen p.84 Heyman Jans soen p.84 Jan Heymans soen p.85 Roele Ghyben soen p.79 Vastraet Aertssen [4] Aryanhwy merch Catmael, "15th Century Dutch Names" (WWW: privately published, 2000). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/dutch15.html Examples of other patronymic constructions include , , In this last name, is an abbreviation for . Abbreviations like this one are not registered by the SCA College of Arms, so you should submit the full spelling; but it would be entirely authentic and very cool if you sometimes signed your name with the abbreviation. [5] Blaeu, Johannes, _Blaeu's "The Grand Atlas" of the 17th-Century World_ (Rizzoli International Publications, partial reprint 1991), pp. 61, 64, 65, 70. [6] More precisely, the diphthong in is the front rounded counterpart of the back rounded diphthongs spelled or in Dutch, which are halfway between the vowels of English and . Put another way, the sound you want is a diphthong whose first element is approximately the o-umlaut of German and whose second element is approximately a German u-umlaut. It's also fairly similar to the vowel in the French word .