ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2204 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2204 ************************************ From: "Sara" 13 Jan 2001 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if we had any information on Seljuk Turkish women's naming practices between 1071 and 1300. Here is what we have found. Unfortunately, we don't know a whole lot about Turkish naming practices, so we don't have much we can offer. We do have one short list of names that were used by Turkish women. Some of the names in this list are Arabic, which tells us that the Turks adopted Arabic names relatively soon after they came into contact with Arab culture. However, the examples we have show that the Turks tended to use the most popular Arabic names rather than the more unusual ones. The following names were used by Turkish women in your period: [1] Fatima Zeliha Zubeyde Uruveyde Eyne Kutlu Saljan Burla Boghazja Chichek Yenge Of these names, and are definitely derived from Arabic names; might also be borrowed from Arabic. In period, Turkish was written using the Arabic alphabet. [2] The forms listed, written in the Latin alphabet, are only rough approximations of the period spellings. If you decide that you're particularly interested in one or more of them, we will provide you with the Arabic spelling and with the pronunciation. We don't know much about surname practices, but it appears that Turkish women either used descriptive bynames in the Turkish language or were known only by a single name. Such descriptives that we have found applying to women usually were related to childbearing; some that we have found mean "pregnant," "barren," "tall," and "of the forty lovers." [3] Unfortunately, the evidence that we have for this type of byname is from works translated into English, so we cannot suggest appropriate Turkish forms of these bynames. We hope that this letter has been useful, and that you will not hestitate to write again if you have any further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Pedro de Alcazar, Devora bat Shimshon, Arval Benicoeur, Julie Stampnitzky, Walraven van Nijmegen, Adelaide de Beaumont, Amant le Marinier, and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 13Jan01 ------------- References: (1) Devora bat Shimshon, correspondence of 25 November 1999. The list is extracted from Geoffrey L. Lewis (ed.) _The Book of Dede Korkut_. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974). The source is a 15th century compilation of older oral tales. (2) Britannica Online, "Turkish language." (WWW: Britannica Online, 2000) Accessed Jan 2, 2001. [URL: http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=75782&sctn=1] (3) Geoffrey L. Lewis (ed.) _The Book of Dede Korkut_. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).