ANSTHRLD - Name Documentation

tmcd at jump.net tmcd at jump.net
Tue May 25 20:59:34 PDT 1999


On Tue, 25 May 1999, Kathleen O'Brien <kobrien at bmc.com> wrote:
> At 11:49 AM 5/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >I don't recall those names from Withycombe.  I recall Nicolla, and
> >perhaps Richarda.  We must re-check.
>
> Those three are from my research on the Registers of the Church of
> St.  Mary's Dymock.  If I ever get a chance between consultation &
> kingdom office stuff, I'll actually finish my paper on Dymock. It's
> about 80% done.
>
> BTW, Nicolla and Richarda are feminine forms of Nicol and Richard
> (obviously).  So they don't quite fit this example.  I need to see
> what examples Withycombe gives in her introduction.

P. xxxiv et seq:

"One other result of the increasing use of saints' names in the later
Middle Ages was the adaptation of men's names to the use of
women. ... Latin records of the 13th to 15th centuries show that the
custom of giving masculine names to girls was also common in England;
they appear in Latin with feminine endings, e.g. Philippa, Nicholaa,
Alexandra, Jacoba, but it is clear that girls so named were in fact
baptized and called Philip, Nicholas, Alexander, James, &c.  For
further details see under thse names.  Other names which were commonly
used for girls were Gilbert, Aubrey, Reynold, Basil, Eustace, Giles,
Edmund, Simon, Florence.  Nicholas was particularly common as a girl's
name in Scotland, where it was still current at the end of the 17th
century.  ... [from a 12th century tract] The Salomites, he says, make
use of the vulgur argument that women often borrow men's names
('plerasque mulieres a viris sibi nomina solere mutuari'), giving as
examples Alexander, Thomas, Eustace, and William.  [but the author
says that it doesn't happen for men, except as later nicknames] on
account of their vicious life ...".

Godiva de Lincolia
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