[Heralds] German/Norse name for Destiny

[Jodi McMaster]

Richard Culver wrote:

>    Yes we are, but people in the SCA need to realize, and I mean more so the
> unstudied, the elder people were much more metaphorical.  So the
> translations are literal to the extent they represent really solid cultural
> metaphors.

Excuse me?  I hope you aren't trying to imply that Sunnifa and her
sources were representing "unstudied" opinions.  It is the
well-researched, studied opinion of the majority of long-time
onomasticians that the view you're advocating is pretty much wrong as to
given names.  Names used in the naming pool were just names--that's
pretty much the point.  To quote the Academy of S. Gabriel:

Choosing a name by its meaning is a minefield. Most names derive from
very ancient roots which had no apparent meaning to anyone by the Middle
Ages. Consider the name <Thomas>, for example. It derives from an
Aramaic      root that meant "twin", but one would hardly expect a man
named <Thomas> today to be a twin. That was equally true in the medieval
world. There are some exceptions, names that were created late enough
that their        meanings would have been apparent to people in your
period; but even these names quickly lost their "meaning" and were just
used as names. It's obvious to us, for example, that the name <Heather>
is identical to the word <heather>, but we don't expect a woman named
<Heather> to be grey-green and bushy.

We can certainly tell you the etymological roots of most names, but it's
a mistake to think that they would have had any significance to the
people who used those names in the Middle Ages.

****

Bynames, on the other hand, may or may not have been used literally: the
tall, the blond, the fisherman...whatever.  Some may have been used
satirically, like the nickname "Curly" often used for a bald man earlier
this century.

AElfwyn
--
AElfwyn aet Gyrwum
mka Jodi McMaster

AElfwyn's Attic
http://jodimc.home.texas.net