ANSTHRLD - Fwd: Name for Amber

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

Teceangl wrote:
> Was the forename a typo?  I can find Alianor, Alianora, Alienor,
> Alienora, Eleanor, Eleanora, Elianora, Elianor, Elinor, Elyenora,
> and Elena, but not Elanor.

Which gives me a chance to riff on extrapolation from existing names
to a candidate name, if I may, because I think there's not enough
understanding on how to do that.

"Elanor": we don't have evidence for that *exact* spelling.  But
there's a lot of variation.  Further, it looks like different parts
may be varying without much regard for each other.  For example, you
see the "-nor/-nora" variation when the name starts "Al-" or "El-",
and when it's "-ia-" or "-ie-".  So it doesn't look unreasonable to
consider the spelling of each part independently.  (That's an
important first step to consider.  There are times where spelling
changes are not independent.  The most notable case is changing
languages.  I might find "Sean mac Fhearguis" or summat like that when
written in an Irish context, or "John MacFergus" when written in an
English context, but "Sean MacFergus" or "John mac Fhearguis" is not
as likely, because you're mixing languages.)

So.  "El-": many of the cases use "El-", and some use "Al-", and we
see names that are otherwise identical except for "El-/Al-", so I
guess it's a free choice of spelling variants, like "grey/gray".

"-nor": same thing.  Some are "-nor", some are "-nora" ("Elena" is a
weird outlier), and there are names otherwise the same that use one or
the other, apparently indifferently.  So that looks like a free choice
too.

"-a-" in "Elanor".  Hmmm.  Those examples again:
    Alianor, Alianora, Alienor, Alienora, Eleanor, Eleanora, Elianora,
    Elianor, Elinor, Elyenora, Elena

What strikes me first is that so many of them have double middle
vowels: ia, ie, ea, even ye.  (NOTE: this isn't the best reasoning,
because I'm counting only variations in spellings we have, not in how
often they appear for different people in sources.  If "Alianor",
f'rex., was used every time except for one known case each of each of
the others, my reasoning would be off.  The problem is that I don't
have usage information, so I work with what I have.)

Anyway.  Only two have a single vowel: one i, and one e.  No single a.
Further, the single e is in "Elena", which is missing the "-or-" seen
in every other name, so it's strange on other grounds.  You can't
extrapolate well from one example, and also not from an unusual one.

If I had more knowledge (note: everything above is reasoned only from
the names given.  Commentary on commentary can be so much easier than
original work), I might find variations on "-ea-/-ia-/-a-" in other
names in English (in much the same way that I know that "i/y" changes
are common in English).  (Note: in English, because we're dealing with
a name in an English context.  English spelling is not the same as
French spelling is not the same as Italian spelling.  Extrapolating
from different languages is much dicier.)  All I can say now is that I
can't support "Elanor" in English from the data given, though it's
close.

Would this be cause for return?  I don't know, but I suspect not.
People will give it the hairy eyeball, though, and that's a thing to
avoid if convenient -- and if the client would be amenable to taking a
known period spelling, that avoids all the work in having to
extrapolate.  So I'd present her with the list of known period
spellings and ask whether any of those satisfy her just as much as her
original spelling -- because, after all, *she's* the one who has to be
satisfied with the result.

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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