ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2123 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2123 ************************************ 28 Dec 2000 From: Judith Phillips Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if the masculine name or the surnames or were used in medieval Romanian. Here is the information we have found. Though the Romanian language is mentioned as early as the 13th century, written records in Romanian only go back to the 15th century. In addition, although Romanian is a Romance language, the script of choice was Cyrillic rather than Roman [1]. Unfortunately, our resources for Romanian names are very slim and we were unable to find much beyond what you found. We would like to thank you for mentioning the web pages that you found; these are wonderful sources! , according to the webpage that you found, is found 5 times between 1386 and 1559. It is one of the more common given names found in that source, making it a fine choice for a given name. [2] Romanians did not use surnames during the medieval period, although they did use epithets. [3] This can make it difficult to interpret the names of historical figures, since an individual might have been called by several different bynames during his lifetime and later been recorded by historians by a name coined after his death. is a masculine byname which in modern Romanian translates as "the Cossack." [4] We found the name on a web page that dated the bearer to 1592 [2]. Unfortunately, we don't know whether the byname was used in period for that person. We have found the same person recorded as ("Petru earring") and ("Petru the lame man") in another source [5]. The Romanian word , "Cossack," appears to be derived from South Turkic , "adventurer." We don't know when the word came into use. In addition, even if was used in period Romanian, we don't know exactly what it may have meant in period. We do know that a form of the word appears in English as early as 1598 [6], so we believe that the word may have been adopted into Romanian even earlier. This should make a plausible byname for a late-period Romanian man, although we have no example of the byname from a period document. Note, however, that Turkish derivation of the word might have had political and social implications in a country that fought a bloody war against invading Turks. In summary, while we think that the name could have been used in late period Romania, we cannot recommend it without reservations. We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter were provided by Talan Gwynek, Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Maridonna Benvenuti, Julie Stampnitzky, Walraven van Nijmegen, Arval Benicoeur, and Amant le Marinier. For the Academy, ~Aryanhwy merch Catmael and Adeliza de Saviniaco 28 December 2000 --------------------------------------- References: [1] Horia C. Matei et al., _Chronological History of Romania_ (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedica Romana, 1972). See entry for October 2, 1409. [2] Friedemann, Sara L., _Names from the Royal Lines of Moldavia and Wallachia_ (WWW: Self-published, 2000). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/romanian.html [3] Bogdan de la Brasov, unpublished research. [4] "English Romanian Dictionary Online." (WWW: Industrial Soft) [URL: http://www.dictionare.com/] [5] Matei et al., op. cit., p. 109. [6] _The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). s.v. Cossack.