ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3061 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3061 ************************************ 1 Jun 2005 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an appropriate name for a 16th-century Italian woman from Tuscany or Florence. Here is what we have found. As we noted in one of our earlier replies to you, neither nor is Italian. The Florentine form of is , which we find in 1427. [1] We also found an example of in Venetian Crete in 1381. [5] A variant form, , is found in 16th century Florence as well. [2] The Italian form of is ; we found examples of the Latin forms and in 14th- and 15th-century Venetian Crete, in otherwise Italian names. [5] The importance of Saint Teodora makes the use of her name as a middle name not implausible in 16th century Tuscany, but it's certainly more likely to have been used in areas with strong Greek influence, such as Venice and the far south. Compound given names (double given names, middle names) were common in some parts of Italy in your period and later. [7,8] The most common pattern was for one of the names to be a saint's name, usually the second. [8,9] The modern surname derives from the Tuscan word , meaning 'hare'; a Venetian form is . [3] We did not find any Tuscan or Venetian examples before modern times. We found in 1474, where the \ represents a grave accent over the previous letter. This is a variant of the Salentini dialect word . [4] We also found the following Sicilian bynames recorded in Latin: a. 925, a. 1169 (this is an inflected form), a. 1172 (this derives from a diminutive of ). [6] 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 if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Maridonna Benvenuti, Sara Marino, Arval Benicoeur, and Gunnvor silfraharr. For the Academy, -Aryanhwy merch Catmael, 01 June 2005 -- References: [1] Arval Benicoeur, "Feminine Given Names from the Online Catasto of Florence of 1427" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1998). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/catasto/ [2] Rhian Lyth, "Italian Renaissance Women's Names" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/rhian/italian.html. [3] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei cognomi italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1978) s.n. Lepri [4] Rohlfs, Gerhard, _Dizionario Storico dei Cognomi Salentini (Terra d'Otranto)_ (Galatina: Congedo Editore, 1982) p. 125 s.n. Le\pore [5] McKee, Sally, _Wills from Late Medieval Venetian Crete 1312-1420_, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1998, ISBN 0884022455). p. 896 [6] Caracausi, Girolamo, _Dizionario Onomastico della Sicilia_ (Palermo, 1994). s.nn. Lepore, Leporino [7] Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, _Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy_, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 255-258. The author notes, "Approximately 60% of the nine hundred children of Florentine bourgeois families studied by means of familial documentation bear a second given name in the period 1360-1530." [8] Lyneya Fairbowe, unpublished research based on a baptismal register from Palermo 1561-3 that is available from the research library of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Her data shows many examples of double and triple given names. [9] James S. Grubb, _Provincial Families of the Renaissance: Private and Public Life in the Veneto_ (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 42-7.