ANSTHRLD - Name Check Please

Timothy A. McDaniel tmcd at jump.net
Tue Jul 25 22:02:34 PDT 2000


>> name I would like to register :  Wilim Penbras
>> a Penbras or a variation thereof: Gwylym Penbras

> Ugh. The names are variants and most likely conflict.
> Choice #1 (the usual fix) is to add a locative.  Wilim Penbras
> of York
Ugh.  It's a beautiful period Welsh name.  Why suggest an English
locative, and when Harpy (below) says that place-names in Welsh
names happen about one percent of the time?

> Choice #2 is to add a descriptive (Wilim Penbras the gray)
Why suggest an English descriptive, especially because he implies
Penbras is already a descriptive?

> Choice #3 is to slap on a second given name (Wilim Robert
> Penbras) which is registrable but rather far from historic practice.
Why suggest a second given name when we have maybe three examples
in Britain in period?

Wilim, most Welsh people used a patronymic (or twelve) in their
names, until they joined the Great Renaming Project (and even
then, they snuck them in with "Williams" and "Broderick" and
such).  Harpy (below) says about half the people used only a
patronym.  I'd suggest you use either only a patronym or
patronym+descriptive.  While the latter case is relatively rare,
it happens often enough that I have no particular qualms about
suggesting it, especially considering you tried the simple case
first and hit a conflict.

My idea is that you should hie thee to
    http://www.s-gabriel.org/docs/#wales
the on-line library of the Academy of S. Gabriel, Welsh division,
and read up.  I have mentioned and I'd suggest particularly
Tangwystyl/Harpy's "A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century
Welsh Names", at
   http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/welsh13.html
for both construction and for frequent male names.  I note
"Penbras" in there, and the meaning is as you stated --
"fat-head".  "Wilim" is there too, as the most common form of
"William" or "Gwilim".  Did you consult one of Mari's printouts?

Talan's article, "Late Sixteenth Century Welsh Names",
    http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/talan/talanWelsh16.html
says that about 23% of the people then had three-element names.
The patterns I have in mind are GBP (given-byname-patronymic) or
GPB (given-patronymic-byname): 2 and 6 examples respectively out
of 48 cases, so about 4% of the total.  I think if you have "name
ap name descriptive", it means that Dad was "descriptive".  You
might want to mark on any forms "meaning is most important" *and*
give the meaning that you want (William Fat-Head, son of
<whoever> -- we can't adjust for the meaning if you don't tell us
what you think it means), and consider asking it to be adjusted
for authenticity for some period.  If you want a good period
Welsh name, Tangwystyl would be overjoyed to consult in advance,
and I can provide her e-mail address.

So Wilim Penbras ap Madog or David or Einion or ... on down the
list.  If you're amenable to it, I'd suggest you choose a name
further up the list (thus, more frequent in period), and choose a
name that's uncommon in the SCA.  There's plenty of Gruffydds,
Madogs, Davids, Ieuans, Llywelyns, et cetera, but I don't recall
ever seeing anyone named Gronou, Ririd, Tegwaret, Gurgenu,
Iockin, Edenowen, Wasdewy, Dehewint, Gogan, Leget, ...  in
various spelling variants listed.  You could, of course, go with
any name listed there and get a fine result, but were I choosing
for myself, I'd go with something that screamed "WELSH!" (to the
cognoscenti) and was unusual.  Plus you get to torture the
heralds with some of the weird wonders, and I'll gladly suggest
torturing anyone in the cause of Authenticity.

(If you select name elements out of Tangwystyl's article in the
spellings provided, and construct them according to Talan's,
everyone will just salute as the name sails on to registration.
Barring conflict, but unfortunately you know that part.)

Daniel de Lincolia
-- 
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)
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