ANSTHRLD - Germanic name sources

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Cyniric wrote:
> I was just confused.  I have evidence for the Cyni-, -ric,
> -ward, and -ing elements.  I also have later cognates.  It just
> sounded like the entirity of the name had to be from a source
> of some sort.

Depends on the language, but it's not a problem in your case.

My understanding is that Anglo-Saxon and the older Germanic names
(Norse too, being Germanic in origin?  I dunno) had an attested
pattern of "one from the protheme column, one from the
deuterotheme column, and screw the literal meaning".  (By that
last, I mean that names have been found that literally mean
"peace war" and "peace peace".)

Therefore, to justify your name to the satisfaction of the
College, you have to show that "Cyni-" was a protheme, "-ric" was
a deuterotheme, "Jeremiah" was a bullfrog ... sorry, I really
shouldn't listen to "Web radio" at work ...  anyway, just finding
those, plus knowing that you can do "any known protheme+any known
deuterotheme", is enough to justify "Cyniric", because you have
the attested pattern above.  It's a kindness to the College to
state that pattern in the documentation box (but first run the
wording past Mari or some other name person to make sure I'm
right), because it's a necessary step in the chain of deduction.

However, you can't justify *any* combination of syllables as an
Anglo-Saxon name.  (I'm not talking to you, Cyniric, as you
presumably know this already.  This is for the others.)
"Protheme" is just our word for "a name element found as the
start of a two-theme name, attached to a deuterotheme", and
"deuterotheme" for "a name element found as the end of a
two-theme name, appended to a protheme".  We know that "-ric" is
a deuterotheme because we find lots of two-element names that end
in it.  I presume that "Cyni-" has some examples too.  "Bubba" is
a good A-S name, and "Godgod" is too, but "Bubbagodgod" is
probably not -- you have to find that "Bubba-" is a protheme in
several names and "-godgod" is a deuterotheme (or find a reliable
source who says that).  "Cyni-" as a protheme and "-ric" as a
deuterotheme doesn't on its own justify rearranging them into
"Riccyni".  ("Ric-" does happen to be a protheme too -- think
"Richard" -- so with more data it might be possible to justify.)

Further, you can't necessarily mush elements together in *other*
languages.  "Rashid" and "Fatima" do not justify "Fathid".
"Michelle" plus "Claude" do not justify "Clauchelle".

However, other languages may have their own patterns.  I believe
Middle English had a habit of chopping certain common names short
and adding "-in", "-kin", "-cock", or something else as a
diminutive marker (or maybe no marker at all).  The case I can
think of right now is Robert -> Robin; now we consider them two
separate names, but one derives from the other.  Or Robert -> Rob
for an unmarked case.

But you don't have to show the exact name if you can interpolate
it from known names using known patterns.

(Now, I once did come up with my Even More Modest Proposal.  You
would only be able to register an *entire name in that spelling
from one place*.  If you want to be John Throckmorton, you would
ahve to find a real period person named John Throckmorton.
Further, you would have to *bear whatever arms they had*.  If
they were non-armigerous, well, it'd suck to be you.  I think
this was put on an LoAR Cover Letter dated April First.)

Richard Neville
-- 
Tim McDaniel is tmcd at jump.net; if that fail,
    tmcd at us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka.Korpela at hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.