[MR] Questions about personas

[EoganOg at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/2/01 12:52:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
beachbum27705 at yahoo.com writes:


> I am very interested in creating a scottish persona from the 12th century. 
> When researching names I found lots of translations of  names, ie: 
> jennifer, mary etc.  Would there have been people with non-gaelic names 
> translated into gaelic or is that a fairly new phenomenon.  I must say this 
> is all very confusing.  For instance, I am very fond of the name Iseabail 
> which is the gaelic version of Isobel, would a parent of the 12th century 
> name a child this?  I must say the perfectionist in me would hate to have a 
> name that wasn't even period!  Forgive me if this email doesn't make any 
> sense <grin>

Hi, and welcome to the wonderful world of Scottish names!

To answer your question...  remember that not all of the population of 
Scotland was Gaelic speaking.  You could also be from the large Scots 
(Inglis) speaking area of Scotland, in which case you would have an English 
language name.

And as far as a registered name in the SCA, remember that when we examine 
Scottish records, we will often find individual names recorded in various 
languages, depending on what documents you look at.  You might have yoru 
Gaelic name, an English version of your name, and a Latin version of your 
name. ;-)

And Gaelic, like English, has changed over the years.  12th century Gaelic is 
not the same as 20th century Gaelic.

I run a very good mailing list for Scottish personas in the SCA called 
Albanach, that you might want to join.  There are some good folks there who 
know quite a bit about medieval Gaelic names.  Go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/albanach

Also, there are some great resources on line that you might want to read over 
before posting questions.  They might answer quite a few for you!

A Simple Guide to Constructing a 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Name
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.shtml

Scottish Names 101
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/scotnames101.shtml

Quick and Easy Gaelic Names
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/

And lots more!
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/

BTW, the lady who wrote these articles is on the Albanach list if you have 
questions.
We'll be glad to help!

Aye,
Eogan Og

Tighearn Eoghan Og mac Labhrainn, OPE, CP
Sacred Stone Pursuivant
Web Master et A&S Minister, Hawkwood
sennechie na hAlba agus Atlantia
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WWW.ALBANACH.ORG
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