[ANSTHRLD] Heraldry question flashback: Audette des Grenouilles

[doug bell]

Audette des Grenouilles - This one wasn't easy by any stretch.

Audette - It turns out this is a lady's given name but
spelled Audet.  I just had to find the right heading to
look under in a book with no index and written in
French.  It didn't help that the name was under the
Provençal or Occitan spelling rather than the French form.

Morlet, Marie-Thérèse, Dictionnaire étymologique des Noms
de Famille, Perrin, 1997.  Page 55 s.n. Auda - female
personal name and Audet is a regional variation.

We can date the base name to 14th century France.
Names from Fourteenth Century Foix
by Cateline de la Mor (Triste Elliot)
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/cateline/foix.html
Feminine Names
Aude (Auda is the Occitan spelling)

Grenouilles

There is a similar place-name if the client will use de
Greinuill.
Reaney & Wilson, Dictionary of English Surnames page 205
s.n. Grenville gives Eustace de Greinuill 1197.

If she wants to go the frog name route with Grenouille or
la Grenouille:
Morlet, Marie-Thérèse, Dictionnaire étymologique des Noms
de Famille, Perrin, 1997.  Page 479 s.n. Grenouille gives
it as an infrequent family name varying by dialect.
Grenouillat in Lyon, Grenoilleau in Languedoc.  A
nickname after the cry associated with this animal.

If you need evidence that animal names were used as bynames.
Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France
by Talan Gwynek (Brian M. Scott)
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/latefrenchfem/
Nicknames
la Bastoyna 1521  'pack animal'
la Berena  1521 bera is 'old ewe', so perh. a dimin. of this
la Petit Hoeyl 1514 oelha is 'ewe', so perh. 'the little ewe'

Let me know when the client wants to submit it.  I will
need to mail you the pages from Morlet's Des Noms.  It is
the best book I know for French but is not on Laurel's list.

Magnus von Lubeck



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