ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2613 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2613 ************************************ From: Sara L Friedemann 03 Dec 2002 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if would be an appropriate name for an Irishwoman living between 1250 and 1450, (where the slash represents an accent over the previous letter). Here is the information we have found. is a Gaelic borrowing of the Anglo-Norman name or , which was common in England between the 12th and 14th centuries. [1] is the standard post c. 1200 spelling of the name, though we found one example of in 1383. [5] is a fine choice for your name. The byname means "daughter of O/ Longain" and was understood to mean "woman of the O Longain clan". We find the masculine form of this byname recorded in the 11th and 12th centuries. [2,3,4] These examples are earlier than the period when was used; but since the clan name remained in use long enough to become a modern surname, we have no reservation recommending this byname for your period as well. is thus a fine choice for your period, and it would have been pronounced \oh-no-r@ EEN-y@n (w)ee LOHNG-ahn~\, where \oh\ is the sound of in , \@\ is the sound of in and , and the \n~\ is the sound of in French 'mountain' and Italian . Note that there is no \g\ sound anywhere: The final element is more like than like . We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Arval Benicoeur, Mari neyn Brian, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, Galiana de Baiona, and Laurensa de Chambord. For the Academy, -Argantgui filia Catmaili, 03Dec02 -- References [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). s.n. Onora [2] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "The Annals of Ulster" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997) http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100001/. [3] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in, ed., "Annals of Inisfallen" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2000). http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100004/ [4] Donnchadh O/ Corra/in & Mavis Cournane, "Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 2", six volumes (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 1997-98), entries M903-M1171. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005B [5] Stephen Beechinor, Eoin Dunford, Beatrix Fa"rber, Philip Irwin, Elva Johnston, Julianne Nyhan, ed., "Annals of the Four Masters, Volume 4" (WWW: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, Ireland, 2000), entries M1373-M1493. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005D/ --