[ANSTHRLD] http://webmail.peoplepc.com/wam/MsgReply?x=2115130136&msgid=11775&title=Reply&action=reply&style=plainRe: for compound household names and bynames

[Jay Rudin]

>How exactly do I need to document a compound byname? Do I need to provide
>documentation that the whole name was used in period? Or do I need to
>provide documentation that the individual elements were used in period? For
>example, how would I document a name like von Hirschbach? Or can I, even?

{Disclaimer: I haven't done this for years, so if the requirements have changed, I wouldn't know it. This should still be 90% of the answer, though.]

You can document individual pieces, but you must also must show that they were used in the same way, in roughly the same time and place. So if you wanted to document "Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith", it's not enough to show "Big Van Vader", village of Dark in Azerbaijin, "Maxwell Lord", "Tarzan of the Apes", and "Cait Sith". You would need to show "Dark" as an adjective, as in the Dark Knight Detective, that Lord or similar words could be followed by an "Of the..." phrase, as in Lord of the Flies, and Sith as a symbol that could be used in an identifying phrase.

Fortunately, "von Hirschbach" is pretty straightforward. "Von" must be followed by a place name, which Hirschbach is. (There are three, according to Wikipedia.) All you have to do is prove one of them existed early enough, and you're there. 

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin

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