English Names

WARNING: Do not cite this page as a reference. This page is on this wiki to make the content "searchable" and easier to find. If you find the information you seek here, go to the original sources (generally linked) to verify the information and use them for your documentation. Contact the editor-in-chief, Sofya la Rus, if there are copyright concerns or other issues.  sofya at calontiri dot info 

See also Anglo-Saxon Names.

Miscellaneous Information:

Double last names in England?

• SENA Appendix A discusses this. It suggests that it is a late period pattern. - http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/sena.html#AppendixA
• R&W s.n. Dreng has <Roger de Brunham le dreng> Henry III. (searchable Google e-book linked below)

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Sources:

English Name Articles at Academy of St. Gabriel "Medieval Names Archive" - http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/english.shtml
Archive of St. Gabriel reports - http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/archive.cgi
Database of medieval names (from the Medieval Names Archive) - http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/database/
English Name Articles at SCA College of Arms Website -http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names.html#england
IGI Searches, batches beginning with C, J, K, M (except M17 and M18), or P are acceptable - http://familysearch.org/

General:

_The Antiquities of Shropshire_ (http://books.google.de/books?id=G1c-AQAAIAAJ )

Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell. A Dictionary of English and Welsh surnames; with special American instances. Free eBook available on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=hrBWAAAAMAAJ

Reaney & Wilson. A Dictionary of English Surnames: http://books.google.com/books?id=fPoujUPs3hYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=a+dictionary+of+english+surnames&hl=en&sa=X&ei=F5yWUKz6IceL2AWu1oHQAw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA

British History On-line, searchable primary sources - http://www.british-history.ac.uk/Default.aspx
A Dictionary of the First or Oldest Words in the English Language by Coleridge - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41975
A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words by A London Antiquary - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47018

Glasgow Online "Historic Thesaurus of the English Language" - http://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/

England's Immigrants, 1330-1550, searchable database at http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/

Very Early Period:

The First Thousand Years of British Names - http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/british1000/
Celtic Personal Names of Roman Britain - http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/personalnames/
Collingwood & Wright's Roman Inscriptions of Britain, Volume One epigraphical index: http://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/epindex/

Old English/Anglo-Saxon:

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - http://www.bosworthtoller.com/node/62883 - Some towns are listed for locative bynames.
The Domesday Book Online - http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/ - the 11th century Domesday Book searchable online.
Old English Translator - http://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/ - translate Modern English words to Old English, including locations. For example entering "Evesham" into the search box will result in entries for the Old English spellings of "Eofesham" and "Euesham."
The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) - http://www.pase.ac.uk/index.html - searchable database of Anglo-Saxon names. Some Old English Occupational Bynames - http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/Stars/OE_Occupational_Bynames.htm

See also Anglo-Saxon Names

Middle English/Anglo-Norman:

Anglo-Norman Dictionary (at the Anglo-Norman Hub) - http://www.anglo-norman.net/

Middle English Dictionary - http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/
Pronunciation of Chaucer's English - http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/
Old English Names after 1300 - http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/english/oepost1300.html

Calendar of Patent Rolls, University of Iowa search (13-15th centuries) - http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/search.html

Late Period:

The Soldier in Later Medieval England - http://www.medievalsoldier.org/search.php (unfortunately, names in the database have been standardized so spelling will need to be confirmed, although they came from period primary sources)

A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/elalme/elalme.html

See also English Placenames

SENA Appendix A: Patterns That Do Not Need Further Documentation...

http://heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#AppendixA (as of 16 April 2021)

English/Welsh

	Double Given Names	Locative	Patronymic	Other relationship	Descriptive/Occupational	Dictus	Double Bynames	Order
Old English	No	Phrase (æX//or //of// X)	Marked, unmarked		Rare	Yes; using Cognomento		given+byname
Middle/Early Modern English	Late	All forms: Phrase (de X, of X, atte Y, de la/del Y); unmarked, adjectival, inn sign (atte Z, of the Z)	Marked, genitive alone, unmarked	Matronymic, many others, marked and unmarked	Yes, may use article the/le or omit it.	Yes; marked	Yes; all patterns late (these are generally unmarked)	given+byname given+byname+loc given+patronym+descrip given+byname+byname
Anglicized Irish	No		Marked, multi-generation	Clan names	Rare		Yes	given+byname given+pat+pat given+patronym+clan
Welsh	Late	Phrase, unmarked	Marked, unmarked, multiple		Yes		Yes	given+byname given+pat+pat
Scots		Phrase (as in English), unmarked	Marked (withMac or as in English), unmarked	As in English only	Yes		Yes	given+pat+ loc given+pat+pat given+pat+descriptive

Notes: Old English: Patronymics take form of X sunu/sune or Xdohtor (X is father's name in genitive); they must match the given name's gender. Alternately, they may follow the Latinized patterns. Locatives use æ or of followed by the placename in dative form. See the introduction to Reaney and Wilson A Dictionary of English Surnames for more details.

Early Modern English: Marked patronymics may use Fitz X/ or Xson; women may use these or use Xdaughter. These forms may all use the father's name unmodified; Xson// and Xdaughter may also use the possessive form. Alternately, they may follow the Latinized patterns. Late period family names tend to drop articles and prepositions. See the introduction to Reaney and Wilson A Dictionary of English Surnames for more details.

Anglicized Irish: See Mari ingen Briain meic Donnchada, "Names Found in Anglicized Irish Documents"(http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnglicizedIrish/ ) for details of how patronymic bynames are marked.

Welsh: See Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn "A Simple Guide to Constructing 13th Century Welsh Names" (http://heraldry.sca.org/names/welsh13.html) and "A Simple Guide to Constructing 16th Century Welsh Names" (http://heraldry.sca.org/names/welsh16.html) for more details.

Scots: See Black Surnames of Scotland for more details.

SENA Appendix C: Regional Naming Groups and Their Mixes

http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/sena.html#AppendixC

Regional Groups:	By Time Period:	Languages Included In This Group:	Can Be Combined With Groups:
English/Welsh	550-1100	Old English, Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric, etc.	Dutch
French
Gaelic
Scandinavian
^	1100-1600	Middle and Modern English, Middle and Early Modern Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Anglicized Irish, Manx, etc.	Dutch
French
Gaelic

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Precedents:

Precedents of the SCA College of Arms - http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/precedents.html
Morsulus Heralds Website - http://www.morsulus.org/ (to search the LoARs and Precedents)

Use the above links to be sure any precedents listed below haven't been superseded by newer precedents.

Collected Precedents of the SCA: English Names - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/English.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Anglo-Saxon - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/AngloSaxonOldEnglish.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Cornish - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/Cornish.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Irish (non-Gaelic) - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/IrishNonGaelic.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Manx (non-Gaelic) - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/ManxNonGaelic.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Scottish (non-Gaelic) - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/ScottishNonGaelic.html
Collected Precedents of the SCA: Welsh - http://heraldry.sca.org/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/Welsh.html

February 2021 Cover Letter - English Adjectival Bynames

This month we registered an adjectival byname based on a person's reputation, Brienne the Scorned. This byname was registered in its past participle form based on period examples of similar bynames denoting a person's reputation. This pattern does not extend to bynames that were not based on reputation, such as "brown-eyed", "long-legged" or "fair-skinned". Bynames like this remain unregisterable in English.

February 2015 - English-German Lingual Mixes

In September 2014, we asked for commentary on whether to allow German and English to be mixed, adding them to Appendix C of SENA. SENA PN2C2c states:

The name mixes name phrases from naming pools that can be documented as having been used together in the personal names of real people; for such combinations, the name phrases must be within 300 years of one another (and within 300 years of the documented examples). For such documentation, at least three period examples must be included in which the names can only be understood as combining from separate naming pools. The borrowing of names from one naming pool into another is not sufficient to demonstrate this, nor is the translation of names into another language.

Commenters provided examples that appeared to show some borrowing of German given names in late period England and vice versa. However, these examples do not provide clear evidence that separate naming pools and naming practices have been combined. Several of these names are saint's names, or were borrowed from classical literature or the Bible, and were excluded from the analysis of the data. Other examples are popular across Europe in our period, so it is hard to tell if they are coming exclusively from German or English.

In addition, we see the borrowing of given names, but not bynames. This can be shown in the marriage records provided in commentary. Both the brides and grooms have bynames from the same language, such as when Ludwig Tilbrok married Mary Archer in England, or when Andrew Weber married Margretha Von Leiningen (the daughter of a Johan Jochem Von Leiningen). We did not find evidence of English people borrowing German bynames, or vice versa.

Lastly, allowing this lingual mix means that its use would not be limited to Early Modern English and High German. We would also have to allow the combination of Middle English, Anglicized Irish, Welsh, or Scots with Low or High German from 1100 on. None of the examples presented in commentary showed how far these name patterns extended into the other languages, or that they appeared prior to the 16th century.

Therefore, we will not add the English-German lingual mix to Appendix C of SENA. However, we will allow the borrowing of given names from German into English and vice versa, in the context of the 16th and early 17th centuries. An English given name that is borrowed from German is considered to be English under Appendix C, and a German given name that is borrowed from English is considered to be German. http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2015/02/15-02cl.html

February 2015 - literal patronymic surnames

Angus Tyresson - "The form in the Letter of Intent, *Tyreson* was documented as a constructed patronym formed from the 17th century English given name *Tyre*. However, bynames were inherited in England in the 17th century, so a literal patronym is not considered likely. In commentary, Orle documented the name *Tyreman* ("servant of *Tyre*") in Reaney & Wilson, dated to the 14th and early 17th centuries. Therefore, *Tyreson* is plausible as a constructed Middle English patronym. " [Feb. 2015, A-West]

September 2013 - Mac vs. Mc:

From Pelican: Reconsidering Mac and Mc (and ending up at the same place) In September 2007, Pelican ruled that Mc and M' were scribal abbreviations for Mac and hence unregisterable. Since then, we have found considerable quantities of new Scots language and Anglicized Irish data. Thus, we revisited the question of whether Mc was only an abbreviation through 1600, or if it had begun to take on life as an independent element. Alys Mackyntoich did considerable research in the Records of the Parliaments of Scotland, all of which suggested that Mc remained a variant of (and presumably abbreviation of) Mac until after the end of our period. Thus, we will not change precedent: both Mc and M' will be expanded to Mac for registration purposes. Individuals with names expanded to Mac should of course feel free to use abbreviated forms like Mc and M' as documentary forms of their name. [[1]]

September 2012 -Given Names Derived from Family Names:

For the last two years, we have registered given names derived from late period English family names, based on a well attested pattern. Commenters have provided dozens of examples of this pattern for masculine names, as well as several examples of this pattern for feminine names (including Smith as a feminine given name). These examples are found both in the IGI index and in Withycombe, which mentions a grey period example of a woman named Essex.

Various commenters have called for us to restrict the registration of these given names to submissions that are completely late period English names. However, this limitation would be a sharp departure from current policy.

First, we would have no grounds to place this limitation on attested given names, which would include Smith, Leach, White, Bainbridge, Guildford, and Richardson, among others. A system which would allow Smith as a given name to be registered more easily than Ashley would create confusion. Second, by long precedent we treat constructed name elements exactly as attested ones. Therefore, we will continue to register these constructed given names in any context suitable for an attested late period English given name.

We note that this pattern has not been documented in Scotland or Ireland. As such, family names only found in Scotland and Ireland cannot be used to create given names. However, many family names spread from Scotland and Ireland into England. In general, family names documented in sixteenth century England may be used to create given names, even if they are of Scottish or Gaelic origin. http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2012/09/12-09cl.html#5

WARNING: Do not cite this page as a reference. This page is on this wiki to make the content "searchable" and easier to find. If you find the information you seek here, go to the original sources (generally linked) to verify the information and use them for your documentation. Contact the editor-in-chief, Sofya la Rus, if there are copyright concerns or other issues.  sofya at calontiri dot info