[ANSTHRLD] Name question: Joe the <color>

[Kathleen O'Brien]

I have just gotten back from Pennsic and am digging through email.  I 
haven't finished reading all of this thread yet, so someone else may 
have already covered this point.

In Gaelic, "blue" and "green" are not the colors we think of them as in 
English.  The Academy of Saint Gabriel client letter 2521 explains:

      "The medieval Irish language split the range of
      colors we call blue and green differently than
      we do: <gorm> "deep blue, leaf-green; swarthy"
      and <glas> "pale blue, light-green; grey".

So, <gorm> versus <glas> refers more to intensity rather than color as 
we think of it.  <gorm> is the more saturated hue and <glas> the less 
saturated.  That's probably the easiest way to think about it.  So, both 
<Gorm> and <Glas> could refer to blue, but which is appropriate is based 
on what color/shade of blue you're going for.

Re: your question on <Alasdair>, <Alasdair> is a Gaelic form.  Like 
<Alasdrann>, it's derived from the Gaelic <Alaxandar>.  If you look at 
the page for <Alaxandar> in the annals index, you'll see how the 
different forms sometimes get used to refer to the same person.

Mari


On 8/8/2011 12:11 PM, Joseph Percer wrote:
> Well... Setting the given name aside for a moment,
>
> Mari has an article published on Descriptive Bynames from the Irish
> Annals located at:
> http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/DescriptiveBynames/
> The article talks a bit about Irish Gaelic descriptive practices.
> Looking at the Alphabetical list of descriptive elements we find
> <Gorm>  for Blue.
>
> http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/DescriptiveBynames/Gorm.shtml
>
> With 1 instance in 1488: [Domhnall Gorm mac Alustrainn Mhic Domhnaill]
> (Or, Blue Donald, son of Alustrainn Son of Donald.) (Is Alasdair
> anglicized form of Alustrainn?)... Either way, A correctly formed
> descriptive Gaelic name with blue, would seem to be<Given name>
> <Gorm>.
>
> If it is indeed Fiacha, I'll punt that to someone else as I don't have
> a copy of OC&M handy to start looking for it.
>
> Andrewe
>
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Richard Culver<rbculver at sbcglobal.net>  wrote:
>> My guess it is Fiacha the Blue.
>>
>>
>> Wihtric
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>
>
>