ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2241 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2241 ************************************ 6 Feb 2001 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a man in 10th century Iceland. This letter is a brief answer to your question. You've chosen a fine name, though we will suggest a slightly different spelling. is an anglicized spelling of the Norse name [2]. The slash in the name represents an acute accent mark on the preceding letter. The final <-r> is a grammatical ending in Norse; it marks the word as being in the nominative case. The name was spelled with an in Old West Norse (i.e. the dialect of Old Norse spoken in Norway and Iceland); the spelling was found in Sweden and Denmark, but isn't appropriate for Iceland. The name was pronounced \GREEM-ohlv(r)\. \oh\ represents the vowel in , and the final (r) is almost silent, just slightly voiced. It is not an extra syllable. is a fine Old West Norse name, one of the most common masculine names in Iceland [1, 2]. The correct Norse translation of "Einarr's son" is . is the possessive form of , analogous to in English. Bynames like this one were most often written as two words in your period. This byname would have been pronounced \AY-narz sohn\, where \AY\ is pronounced as in and \oh\ is once again the vowel in . We therefore recommend as the most likely Icelandic form of your name. In your period, the Norse wrote with runes. We can't write in runes in this letter, so we'll use a modern system for representing runes with the standard western alphabet. You can find illustrations of several versions of the futhark (runic alphabet), with the modern labels, on the web: http://www.algonet.se/~tanprod/zerunes1.htm The two versions of the Younger Futhark are appropriate for your period. In runes, your name would probably have been spelled [3, 4]. We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Maridonna Benvenuti, Hartmann Rogge, Lindorm Eriksson, Talan Gwynek, and Adelaide de Beaumont. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 6 Feb 2001 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Fleck, G. (aka Geirr Bassi Haraldsson), _The Old Norse Name_, Studia Marklandica (series) (Olney, Maryland: Yggsalr Press, 1977). [2] Lind, E.H., _Norsk-Isla:ndska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn fra*n Medeltiden_ (Uppsala & Leipzig: 1905-1915, sup. Oslo, Uppsala and Kobenhavn: 1931), s.nn. Einarr, Gri/mo/lfr [3] Uppsala University Department for Scandinavian Languages, "Samnordisk runtextdatabas" (WWW: Uppsala universitet, 29 Oct 1997). It has for . Inscriptions O:g 8 $, O:g 120 #, O:g 191 #, So: 145 #, Vg 190 and U 385 Einarr: O:g 130 #. (O: and o: here represents O-umlaut and o-umlaut.) http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.htm [4] Gutenbrunner, Siegfried. Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Altislaendischen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitaetsverlag, 1951), p.15. The Old West Norse name derives from Proto-Scand. *; the diphthong */ai/ eventually became <{ae}i> in Old Norwegian and in Old Icelandic, but in runic inscriptions of the 10th and 11th c. it seems generally to appear as (and sometimes ), e.g., for later , for later , etc.