ANSTHRLD - Germanic name sources

Kathleen O'Brien kobrien at bmc.com
Fri Jul 14 14:01:42 PDT 2000


>>I am trying to find out if the name Waldorf is period for the 1300's and
>>have run into a brick wall. Does anyone have The Old Germanic Principles
>>Of Name-Giving by
>>Woolf, Henry. And if so could you let me know if Waldorf is in there.
>>
>>Dietrich Von Waldorf (maybe?)
>
>
>  My understanding is if it is a feasible construction, even if not 
>specifically documented as a town or name, it should pass regardless.  


Below is an excerpt from the Cover Letter to the April 2000 LoAR.  

What this means to us:  If it can't be documented, it will be returned.
Period.  End of sentence.

This policy should not substantially alter the way Ansteorra does business
since we've concentrated on getting good documentation for all submissions
going up to Laurel.  I can only think of a couple of borderline cases in
the last couple of years that this policy would affect.

But that also means that we need to focus on trying to get that
documentation in each submission when it's submitted.  And we need more
people to comment on ILoIs.  The internal commentary we get is one of our
great strengths.  It allows us to solidly document submissions, making them
much more likely to pass at the Laurel level.


>I am 
>sure that spelling or a slight variant would work assuming it is indeed a 
>place name.


Now this is a slightly different case than "not specifically documented".
This case is that _some_ _form_ of that name is documented - and evidence
is given that the desired spelling is reasonable, even if we could not find
a dated example for that _exact_ spelling.

This is different than simply saying "we think this to be a reasonable
placename".  No kidding.  I don't remember which kingdom this was, but on
an LoI in the last six months, there was a name submitted "[given name] of
[some placename]", where the only documentation for the placename was
effectively "we think this to be a reasonable placename".  No examples of
parallel placenames.  No evidence for _why_ they thought it was a period
placename, etc.  

The name was returned for lack of documentation of the placename.

Let's not let something similar happen to someone if we can help it.


>   As a suggestion though I would see if people used second or middle names 
>in your period. If so I would personally suggest an additional name to 
>Dietrich.  I can already recall seeing at least two Dietrich von X's 
>someplace.  I could be wrong though.  The later period is not my interest.


I have conflict checked <Dietrich Von Waldorf> online and it is currently
clear.  I would recommend against adding an element to your name.  Your
desired form is certainly documentable.  Here are some examples (all from
the English translation of Bahlow):

<German given name> von <German placename>  [This article form means "from".]
Hainrich von Raste   (1244, Bahlow-N, p. 439, Rast)       from Rast
Bert von Rode        (1257, Bahlow-N, p. 462, Röder)      from Rödern
Thideman von Putten  (1300, Bahlow-N, p. 429, Pütter)     from Pütte
Lorencz von Schonaw  (1381, Bahlow-N, p. 503, Schöner(t)) from Schönau
N. von Czirnau       (1413, Bahlow-N, p. 570, Tscherner)  from Tscherna

Note that <von> is lower case in all of these examples.


Regarding documentation for your given name, here are all the spellings for
<Dietrich> from:

Talan Gwynek (Brian M. Scott), "Medieval German Given Names from Silesia"
(WWW: 1998-1999).  
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/bahlow/

Diterich       9  1226, 1251, 1281, 1347, 1354, 1382, 1383 (2), 1388,
    Ditherich  1  1384
    Ditrich    1  1321
    Dieterich  2  1291, 1347
    Dietrich   1  1318
    Theodricus 1  1348
    Ditl       1  1348
    Dietl      1  1365
    Ticze      6  1345, 1348, 1369, 1383 (2), 1388
    Tycze      1  1331
    Ticzco     1  1348
    Tyczco     1  1352
    Ticzman    1  1381
    Til        2  1356, 1391
    Tile       2  1316, 1345
    Tyle       1  1420
    Tilo       7  1291, 1314-39 (2), 1348 (2), 1349, 1365
    Tylo       1  1362
    Tilke      2  1350, 1391
    Tilman     1  1327
    Tilusch    1  1349


I can look up <Waldorf> in my copy of Bahlow when I get home.  Magnus may
well beat me to it. 

Assuming we can document <Waldorf>, it looks like you have chosen a fine
German name.  Congratulations!

Mari
P.S.  Cyniric, I have located hard evidence for the "sunu" type
constructions.  But I left it at home.  I will bring it in on Monday and
post it.



****************************************************************

>From the Cover Letter to the April 2000 LoAR:

>From Pelican - Documentation in LoI's

There has recently been some discussion about summarizing name
documentation in LoI entries. This started with some items which had as the
summary a S. Gabriel client number and the names of the people who had
worked on it. This caused some relatively harsh criticism.

I'm afraid I have to agree with the critics. Section V.B.2.d of the
Administrative Handbook states that a "summary of all supporting evidence
provided for the submission must be included on the letter of intent". Now,
a "summary" like the one that started this discussion is essentially
similar to saying simply "the name is found in Withycombe", without
mentioning what Withycombe writes about the name. Both these "summaries"
may fulfill the letter of the rule (although even that can be doubted) but
they most certainly don't fulfill the intent, which is to make sure that
each commenting member of the College can judge the merits of the
documentation.

Granted, the Academy of Saint Gabriel has its letters publicly available on
the Web. Also, their work is excellent, although the goals are not quite
the same as those of the College of Arms. We have recently renewed the
agreement whereby the letters of the Academy are accepted as documentation,
so that a copy of the letter is sufficient without attaching copies of the
sources cited.

All this, however, does not mean that the client number is a sufficient
summary of the documentation. Immediate and affordable net access is
something we neither do nor can require from commenting members of the
College; for instance, the default method for distributing letters is by
regular mail and people have to specifically request e-mail commentary.
However, this is in fact beside the point: even if everyone had such access
we would still need a summary, just like we need a summary when a name is
documented from the reference works listed in Appendix H of the
Administrative Handbook.

Starting with the July 2000 LoI's we are going to tighten our
interpretation of V.B.2.d. so that items that don't have a proper summary
of supporting evidence may be returned instead of pended. Blatant cases
(such as "<name> is Saint Gabriel Client #1234", or "<name> is Irish" or
"<name> is in Withycombe") will be returned unless the College of Arms is
able to provide appropriate supporting evidence in its commentary.

If you are unsure about how to properly summarize name documentation, help
is available. One possibility, at least for the majority who have e-mail
access, is the submission heralds mailing list
<SCASubmissionHeralds at onelist.com>; another possibility is to ask either
Laurel or myself. Asking for help is no reason to be ashamed; on the
contrary, knowing when to ask for help is a major part of the skills needed
for any serious office.


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