Group Names

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Definition:

From the Glossary of Terms:

A collection of people, not necessarily an official branch. Households, orders, and branches are all referred to as groups in the Rules for Submissions. [now called "Non-personal Names" in SENA]

[[1]]

Rules:

SENA GP. General Principles http:heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#GP GP.2. Registration and Documentation #GP2AA. The Nature of Registration: ...Some items are considered too generic to be registered. This means that they may be used by anyone and may not be reserved to one person or group by registration. One such category is generic identifiers such as Brewer's Guild// and //Queen's Guard. These names may be used by any branch to identify the owner or association of a badge, but no group may register them... These generic items are not restricted by the College of Arms, but may not be registered to anyone.

SENA on Non-Personal Names: http:heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#NPN

SENA NPN.1.C.2.C: http:heraldry.sca.org/laurel/sena.html#NPN1 "Lingua Anglica Allowance: We also allow the registration of translations of attested and constructed household names, heraldic titles, and order names into standard modern English, which we call the lingua Anglica rule."

E. Generic Identifiers: As discussed in GP.2.A, some items are considered too generic to be registered; this means that they may be used by anyone and may not be reserved to one person or group by registration. One category of items that may not be registered is generic identifiers like //Brewer's Guild// and //Queen's Guard; these names may be used to identify the owner of a badge or to designate its intended use, but no group may register it (and hence prevent others from registering it). These generic items may be used by anyone without registration, but may not be registered to anyone.

SENA Appendix E: Currently Registerable Designators for Non-Personal Name Submissions http:heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#AppendixE D. Household Names: This category includes guilds, military companies, and similar groups of people. A variety of designators have been registered for households; in any case both the designator and substantive element must follow a single pattern for a group of individuals found in period. Models that have been used include groups like a guild or military company, members of a dynastic or personal household, and the people resident at an inn or other named residence. Discussions of registerable designators for household names can be found at:

Sharon Krossa, "A Brief, Incomplete, and Rather Stopgap Article about European Household and Other Group Names Before 1600" [[2]]
The Compiled Names Precedents: Designations [[3]] [link corrected 10/26/2013]

Sources:

Academy of St. Gabriel "Medieval Names Archive" - [[4]] Database of medieval names (from the Medieval Names Archive) - [[5]]

Laurel Name Articles - http:heraldry.sca.org/laurel/

IGI Searches, batches beginning with C, J, K, M (except M17 and M18), or P are acceptable - http:familysearch.org

On-line Middle English Dictionary - [[6]]

Precedents:

Precedents of the SCA College of Arms - [[7]] Morsulus Heralds Website - [[8]] (to search the LoARs and Precedents) Restatement Wiki - [[9]] (restatements of Precedents) Use the above links to be sure any precedents listed below haven't been superseded by newer precedents.

Collected Precedents of the SCA: Branch/Group Names - [[10]]

Collected Precedents of the SCA: Household/Guild Names - [[11]]

Collected Precedents of the SCA: Order/Award Names - [[12]]

Collected Precedents of the SCA: Designations - [[13]]

From the October 2013 Cover Letter: From Pelican: Some Name Resources (an ongoing series) This week I was asked why we can't mix and match household name patterns: that is, combine designators from one pattern and substantive elements from another. Let's start with the rules. SENA says: > The designators for household names must be documented as a form describing a group of people in a particular culture. It must be compatible with the substantive element in terms of content and style. There is no standard designator which is considered compatible with all types of names for groups of people. > Several kinds of groups of people have served as models for household names. They include a noble household, a military unit, a guild, a group of people associated with an inn or tenement house, a university or school (noting that the word college is reserved for branches), clans, and an organized group of musicians or actors. Designators may be registered in the original language or may take the lingua Anglica form. Suitable substantive elements (like simple descriptions) may take the lingua Anglica form as well. So, essentially what this says is that a household name can follow pretty much any pattern for a group of people or for patterns for places that hold a group of people, like an inn, dormitory, or abbey. But each of these kinds of household names follows different models, and the entire household name has to follow a single model. The reason we allow multiple designators for household names, instead of requiring all to use a single designator like house, is to allow for better recreation. Thus, submitters can create household groups that follow models of religious groups, groups of scholars, or military groups, as well as a group of people associated with a noble house. However, that same logic demands that we require the names of households to be internally consistent. You cannot name a household X Abbey but use a model from a brothel to create the rest of the name (no, I don't know models for the names of period brothels). You cannot name a household using a designator for a military company but use a model from a college to create the rest of the name. Now, we do allow household names, both the designator and the substantive element, to be translated into English using the lingua Anglica allowance: the Frenchl'ostel du B{oe}uf couronné may be registered as House of the Crowned Bull or the German Gesellschaft im Fisch und Falckhen may be registered as theSociety of the Fish and Falcon. As with other uses of the lingua Anglica allowance, names may be translated to make them as comprehensible to English speakers as they would be to the speakers of the original language (French, Italian, Old Norse, and the like). Remember that this does not allow the translation of the meanings of personal names or place names; personal names must stay in their original forms, while place names may use their standard modern English form. Branch names follow a slightly different rule, in part because we require branches to use specific designators which can change as a branch's status changes. We allow any type of branch to use the name of a place of essentially any size, from a small village to a large city or region. Alternately, we allow branches to use a model suitable to their particular designator. This mostly affects colleges and other specialized branches that are unlikely to change type; however, we allow them to change type of branch as well. [[14]]

From the May 2013 Cover Letter: From Pelican: Company as Order Name Designator In period, company and its cognates was used to refer to a variety of kinds of groups of people, including military groups, guilds, and knightly orders. Under the Rules for Submissions and SENA, company// was limited to household names and not allowed as a designator for order names. However, commenters agreed that we should follow period practice and allow //company and other similar words to be used as a designator for any suitable non-personal name. This of course does not remove the requirement that a designator be documented as appropriate to the type of non-personal name submitted. It simply allows designators to be used for multiple types of non-personal names. We are therefore directing Palimpsest to develop new wording for the relevant sections of SENA. [[15]]