Italian Names?

[Tim McDaniel]

On Fri, 31 Jan 1997, Nathan W. Jones <njones at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> For first names, try Shakespeare.

That'd be a "no", Bob.  Two examples:

March 1994 Laurel Letter of Acceptances and Return, East returns:

    Miranda of Halidon Hill.  Name.

        Miranda was coined by Shakespeare after the close of our
        period.  While we have often registered names used by people
        documented only from the "grey area" (1600-1650), fictional
        names from literature are more problematic.  Given the
        relatively small number of prior registrations of Miranda, as
        well as the dates of these registrations, we do not feel
        compelled to continue registering the name as SCA-compatible.

>From the September 1994 LoAR, Ansteorran acceptances (OK, so they're
surnames):

    Cecelya Capelet.  Name and device.  Per chevron inverted sable and
    gules, a maiden's head couped proper, crined Or, between three
    ankhs argent.

        Submitted as Cecelya Capulet, Shakespeare's use of Capulet is
        insufficient to establish it as an actual name.  The available
        Italian sources suggest that Capulet is probably a distortion
        of Cap(p)elletti (and that Montague is similarly a distortion
        of Montecchi).  We have substituted, at Palimpsest's
        suggestion, Capelet, an occupational byname for a maker of
        chaplets (small hats; chaplets, garlands).

> And for a great read about Florentine life try "Two Memoirs of
> Renaissance Florence", ... and don't forget "The Autobiography of
> Benvenuto Cellini", which also happens to be a really great read.

I recommend period non-fiction, with the proviso that you're
presumably reading a translation that doesn't concern itself with
onomastics, so the names may have been normalized to a modern English
form.  (E.g., if you ever read about Edward the Black Prince, it's
been modernized; that epithet wasn't used within two centuries of his
lifetime.)  I suggest that anyone selecting a name from non-fiction
realize this, and realize that there may be a more authentic spelling
(and preferably seek it out, via alt.heraldry.sca, rec.org.sca, the
Academy of St. Gabriel, ...).

Fiction is not generally an acceptable source for name documentation.
Plenty of authors make up names or distort them, even when writing
about people from their own culture.  (The Mabinogian, for example, is
rife with god/dess and allegorical names; Dickens invented surnames
freely in his works.)  However, Talan Gwynek says that in his
experience Boccaccio's _Decameron_ seems to be a reliable source for
Italian names.  If there are other examples of usable fiction, I don't
know of them, so I'd avoid fiction as a source except as a last resort
(and realizing a probability of failing to get a period name).

-- 
Daniel de Lincoln
                             Tim McDaniel
                        Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com
      tmcd at mcdaniel.dallas.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.