[Sca-cooks] OT, persona and name

[AF Murphy]

After dithering around for years, I have finally chosen a persona, and I
finally have most of a name.

I'm going to be a merchant's widow (running the business, of course) in
Bergen, Norway, in the second half of the 14th Century. I'm not sure yet
what my major commodity will be, but I have a feeling I'm about to learn
a lot about salt cod and herring... they were major exports. And I have
to see where fiber and textiles fall into this... Any information about
the Hanseatic League is appreciated. (I think I'm obliged to sell to
them, rather than run my own ship.)

Naturally, I managed to find one of the few later period societies that
some variation of the name "Anne" had not yet hit. Did shortly after, I
can name my granddaughter that, it was extremely common after 1500, but
no records of it in Norway before 1400. So, I fall back on an alternate.

I am now AEllin. (Ællin, if your mail program will read it, the AE is
one letter, called the AE ligature.) It's a version of Helen or Ellen,
in modern English. The AE is pronounced like the A in mat or cat (or
Anne, for that matter) and the I is like EE.

Patronymic is still in process - only in the SCA can a woman choose her
own father! But I've been painting myself into a corner with Anne, and
thought I'd better get this change started. It's going to take a while
for me to get used to it, let alone anyone else...

AEllin
Ællin
Anne
whatever...