ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3308 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3308 ************************************ From: "Lisa and Ken Theriot" 3 Nov 2007 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You wanted to know if is an authentic given name for a woman living outside Lyons sometime between 1500 and 1550. You also asked about the name . Here is the information we have found. France today is a unified country with a common language. That was not true in our period: Pre-modern France was home to several languages, each of which was used in a range of dialects, some quite similar, some quite different. The most significant division was between the langue d'oil, or French, spoken in the north, and the langue d'oc, also called Occitan or Provenc,al, spoken in the south (here the comma represents a cedilla under the letter ). These were different languages, not just dialects of the same language, and names in them were often quite different. You can see a map of the different dialects of France below: http://lrrc3.sas.upenn.edu/popcult/MAPS/france/dialecte.gif Each region is labeled with the name of the corresponding regional dialect. Those colored green and yellow are langue d'oil dialects; those colored red and pink are langue d'oc. The small cluster of blue regions lying between these two families in the east shows the Franco-Provenc,al dialects, which form a family distinct from both langue d'oil and langue d'oc but sharing some features with each. One of these dialects is lyonnais, the dialect of Lyon and its surrounding region, the area colored dark blue on the map. was the typical English spelling of the city's name. In France, and more often in modern English language references, the spelling used is without the . We will use this spelling throughout the letter. Unfortunately, the name you've selected is much more typical of the langue d'oil regions. We find the particular spelling only in the 1292 census of Paris, so it's not a very good choice for either your period or your desired location [1]. In 15th century Parisian records we find the form far more popular than the common diminutive , and by the 16th century we only find the form [2, 3]. This may be due to our small amount of available data, or it may indicate that the diminutive form became less fashionable over these centuries as the name developed into the modern form . It may simply be that scribes became more standard in their representation of names, so a scribe recording the name of a woman who called herself simply wrote down ; we can't be sure. We have a collection of given names for your period from Valais, Switzerland, which falls within the Franco-Provenc,al dialect region. The most common form of the name recorded is , with a few instances of pet forms , , , and [4]. We are certain that some feminine form of was used in the area of Lyon in your period. Our limited data does not include any diminutive forms such as Jehannette, but the Valais data shows that diminutive forms are not unusual in the linguistic region. Therefore, though we have no clear evidence that or the like was in use in Lyon in the first half of the 16th c., we would not be surprised to encounter it given more data. is a better choice for you. A woman named lived in Lyon from 1520-1545; a collection of her poetry was published by her husband shortly after her death [5]. We can therefore be sure that was used as a given name in Lyon in the first half of the 16th century. also appears as a moderately common name in marriage records from 16th and 17th century Lyon; the only form of your other choice that appears in these same records is the modern form , which was also common in the records [8]. is an Old French word for 'beech-tree'; , from older , was originally a byname for someone who lived near a notable beech-tree or stand of beech-trees or who came from a place named for its beech-tree(s). There are also many other surnames derived from this word [6]. Our only 16th c. example of the form was recorded in Rouen, in the far north of France [7]. Marriage records from Lyon for the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries are in the process of being made available online; in summaries of these records from between 1550 and 1649 we found the following surnames [8]: Dufay 1625-1649 (2) de Fay 1600-1624 Fayolle 1550-1574 (2), 1575-1599 (2), 1600-1624, 1625-1649 (11) Faiolle 1550-1574 Fayel 1600-1624 (2), 1625-1649 Fayetton 1600-1624 (2), 1625-1649 Fayeton 1600-1624 Fayet 1575-1599, 1625-1649 (4) Fayez 1575-1599, 1600-1624 Fayot 1600-1624 Fayard 1600-1624 (2), 1625-1649 (2) (The summaries give only date ranges; the numbers in parentheses are the number of separate instances of the surname in that date range.) As you can see, the name was especially frequent in these records; it originally referred to a beech grove. , though less frequent in this small sample, is a term for the beech-tree specific to Lyon and the surrounding region. We believe any of the above forms are reasonable choices for your surname. seems to have been a particularly popular form, and has the earliest examples. would be a fine name for a woman living outside Lyon between 1500 and 1550. We hope that this letter has been useful to you. Please don't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. I was assisted on this letter with research and commentary provided by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Coblaith Mhuimhneach, Margaret Makafee, Mari neyn Brian and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Adelaide de Beaumont 4 November 2007 References: [1] Colm Dubh, "An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris", Proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium 1996 (SCA: Montgomery, Alabama; WWW: SCA, Inc., 1997). http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/paris.htm [2] Friedemann, Sara L. (aka Aryanhwy merch Catmael), "French Names from Paris, 1421, 1423 & 1438" (WWW: privately published, 2002-2003). The form appears over 5 times as frequently (31 instances) as the form (6 instances). http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/paris1423.html [3] Friedemann, Sara L., "Names from a 1587 Tax Roll from Provins" (WWW: privately published, 2002). Provins is 50 miles south of Paris. http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/provins1587.html [4] Uckelman, Sara L., "14th-16th c. Names from Valais, Switzerland" (WWW: Self-published, 2005-2006). The documents in this collection were written in Latin, so it's not impossible that could be a Latinized version of something that might appear as in French documents. http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/swiss/valais.html [5] "Pernette du Guillet" (WWW:fr.wikipedia.org, 30 May 2007). http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pernette_du_Guillet&oldid=1709 5056 [6] Dauzat, Albert, _Dictionnaire Etymologique des Noms de Famille et Prenoms de France_ (Paris: Libraire Larousse, 1987), s.nn. Dufay, Fau, Fay. [7] Cateline de la Mor, "Sixteenth Century Norman Names" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/cateline/norman16.html [8] "Relevés de Contrats de marriage, Notaires de Lyon & du Lyonnais" (WWW: ARCHIVES MULTIMEDIA, 30 May 2007). Under 'Recherche' in the second column near the top of the page click on 'Recherche par nom'. On the resulting search page set the top drop-down menu ('Type du nom') to 'tous les noms de l'acte', enter 'Fay' in the box 'Nom de Recherche', and click on the 'Rechercher' button. You'll get a table whose first three columns give the husband's name, the wife's name, and the quarter-century in which the marriage took place. In some entries neither the husband nor the wife has a surname; presumably in these cases someone else named in the document bore such a name. The two instances of can be picked up by entering 'Dufay' instead of 'Fay' in the search box. The given names include a variety of forms for some names; for example, the feminine form of appears as Jacque\me, Jacquemine, and Jacquemette. We are somewhat suspicious that the only form of the feminine to appear in the records is . It's very possible that someone normalized any feminine form of to the most common form in modern use. http://www.cm69.com/