Niva in Rauda

Full Name Desired

• Neva In Rauda.

Neva/Niva

Preferred pronunciation: nee-vah

Norse

• We have found the name Sunneva - <Sunneva> is documented from "Jensen's Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire" (pp. 271 - 272) sn. Sunnifa. Commentary pointed out that per the google books preview of FJ, <Sunneva> appears in the Latin ablative, 1121-27; based on this it is after the cutoff for mixing Scandinavian and English.

Russian

• Niva is found as a period masculine name in Russian (нива), although it's a grammatically feminine word
  • Niva (m) -- Ivan Niva, executioner, 1558. Wickenden, 2nd edition
  • нива (fem) cornfield per SlovoEd dictionary (note that maize is out of period).
  • нива means ager (Latin, field), arvus (Latin, plowed), пашня (plowed field), поле (field), oобработанное подъ пашню (worked/cultivated under plowed field) and dates as far back as the 11th century per Volume II pp. 445-446 of Sreznevsky, I.I. Материали для Словаря Древней Русского Языка (Material for a Dictionary of the Ancient Russian Language) available online on various sites (and downloaded on Sofya la Rus' computer).
• Need support for a feminine Niva/нива, which would allow Niva in rauða instead of the masculine form, Niva inn rauði [sic]

1. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence for Russian women's names because:
   1. Men's names are attested much more than women's names per Wickenden, https://heraldry.sca.org/names/paul/zpreface.html
   2. Russian men fairly frequently used grammatically feminine names. Given the disparity in men's vs. women's names, there are more "feminine" men's names documented than all women's names combined, see Sofya la Rus' notes at Gender Bending Names for more information
2. Names used by both men and women (all per Wickenden) come in a wide variety: Bela (white), Belka (squirrel), Boika (fight), Desha (ten), Dobritsa (good), Dragin'ia (dear), Groza (terror), Kalia (dirt), Kasha (porridge), Kata (rolling), Krasa (beautiful), Kudra (curl), Kuna (quill), Kunka (marten), Leva (lion), Liuba (love), Maliuta (small), Mana (attract), Manka (lure), Miakusha (soft), Milenia (dear), Mira (peace/earth), Nedelia (week), Olenka (hart), Ovtsa (sheep), Paraskov'ia (Friday), Radka (joy), Sel'ianka (peasant, of the field), Shchuka (pike), Sina (blue), Vera (faith), Vladyka (rule), Voina (war)...
3. Wickenden's Locative Bynames in Russia lists very few bynames based on geographic landscape features, such as поле (field), few are grammatically feminine and, not surprisingly, none of them are documented as women's names
4. Plant-based names (ibid) and also Botanical Bynames in Russian:
   1. Ol'kha (f) -- dim of Ol'ga per Wickended 2nd edition, but ol'kha also Alder -- Ol'khin (from ol'kha, 1540)
   2. Riabina (m) -- "female [sic] slave" even though documented as a man's name - Riabina, peasant, 1495. but also mountain ash (tree) per Botanical Bynames in Russian
   3. Sosnin (byn) -- "pine." Osif Iakovlev syn Sosnin, 1573. Doesn't specify if parent, Sosna, was male or female (although most likely male)
   4. Ivin (byn) -- "willow." Belianka Ivin, Sviiazhsk boiar's son, 1614. Ditto.

Byname/Surname

• In Rauda - ‘inn rauði’ as an adjectival byname meaning "red" on page 26 of Geirr Bassi's The Old Norse Name shows. This has been modified to the appropriate feminine form following the rules given on page 19 of The Old Norse Name.
• hin Rauða - is the feminine form of <hinn Rauði>, a descriptive byname meaning 'the Red,' from The Bynames of the Viking Age Runic Inscriptions by Lindorm Eriksson; https://www.s-gabriel.org/names/lindorm/runicbynames/body.htm#start, originally published in KWHSS Proceedings 1999. Also found in FJ, p. 216.

Combination

• You can combine Russian and Norse if within 300 years per SENA Personal Names and SENA Appendix C
• Temporal compatibility is 500 years for names within a single naming group per SENA.