ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2633 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2633 ************************************ From: Sara L Friedemann 01 Jan 2003 Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a Polish woman born in Gdansk in the early 1300s. You also asked about as a pet form of . Here is the information we have found. Most records from Poland in your period were written in Latin, not in Polish. Therefore, we can only speculate on what the possible Polish form of a name would be. We find the following spellings recorded in Latin in your period: [1] Katerina ca.1265 Katherina 1340 Katharina 1385 Katherzina 1387 Katharzina 1397 These likely represent the Polish spelling , which by the 16th century was one of the most popular feminine names. [2,3] In the 13th through 16th centuries, we believe was roughly pronounced \kah-tah-ZHEE-nah\, where the \ZH\ is a voiced \sh\, the sound of the in . The exact sound of here is quite complicated, but this is a reasonable approximation. We have not found in any of our sources, and believe that it is probably a modern pet form. We recommend that you do not use it. If you would like information on pet forms of that were in use in your period, please write us again and we'll be happy to research this. The byname is not properly formed; words following "out of, from" need to be in the genitive case, according to Polish grammar. The genitive case of is , (where the slash represents an accent over the previous letter), but we do not recommend you use as your byname, as this type of construction was not very common. The more common construction for locative bynames (bynames that identify where the bearer is from) is to add <-ski> to the end of the name of the city. We find the following masculine bynames meaning "from Gdansk" recorded in the 15th century: [1] Gedansky 1429 Gdanczki 1438 Gdanzky 1446 Gdanszky 1449 For a feminine name, the final <-i> or <-y> becomes an <-a>, e.g. , . Though these examples are from after your period, we believe that they would be reasonable for the early 14th century as well. All of these feminine forms were pronounced roughly \GDAHN~-skah\, where \N~\ is the sound of in French 'mountain' and Italian ; if you have trouble pronouncing this sound, then \GDINE-skah\ comes much closer to the right sound than \GDAHN-skah\ does. We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Talan Gwynek, Arval Benicoeur, and Walraven van Nijmegen. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 01Jan03 -- References: [1] Taszycki, Witold (ed.), _Sl/ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_, vols. I-VII (Wrocl/aw: Zakl/ad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli{n'}skich, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1965-1987). s.nn. Gdan/ski, Katarzyna [2] Danuta Kopertowska. "Nazwy Osobowe Mieszkan/co/w Podkieleckich Wsi (1565-1694)" (Krako/w: Polska Akademia Nauk, Prace Komisji Je,zykonawstwa No. 56, 1988 [3] Golin/ski, Mateusz. "Biogramy mieszczan wrocl/awskich do kon/ca XIII wieku." (Wrocl/aw: Prace Historyczne XVIII, 1995)