Ornithological Names

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Names based on birds.

Period Forms:

• Raven m. Old English hræfn, Old Icelandic hrafn, Old High German raban, Old Saxon hram 'raven'. DMNES

English

<Dawe>, dated to 1211 and 1275 or <Dawes> 1279 s.n. Daw from Reaney &Wilson from the Middle English dawe, jack-dawe, or from Daw, a pet form of David

Raven

Searle; Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum; P.394 has R{ae}fen dated to 1023 as a given name. - Google eBook

Raven as a given name - http://dmnes.org/name/Raven
Raven as a surname - Family Search, Margarita Raven, 1648 burial, Stafford England, Batch B39598-4

German:

Raven - http://dmnes.org/name/Raven

Irish Gaelic: <Bran> apparently identical with the word for 'raven': @http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/Masculine/Bran.shtml.

Italian:

<Usignolo> one example as a masculine given name in "Names in 15th Century Florence and her Dominions: the Condado" (@http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/condado/) [usignolo apparently means nightingale in Italian]

Norse:

Hrafn: Old Norse for “raven.”

• Geirr Bassi Haraldsson. The Old Norse Name. Studia Marklandica I. Olney,
• MD: Markland Medieval Militia. 1977. p. 11
• Fellows-Jensen, Gillian. Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Copenhagen. Akademisk Forlag. 1968. pp. 210-212
• Lind, _Norsk-Isländska Dopnamn ock Fingerade Namn från Medeltiden_, column 564, has Hrafn, a masculine given name, dated 1342, 1475.
• http://dmnes.org/name/Raven

Sources:

Academy of St. Gabriel "Medieval Names Archive" - [[1]] Database of medieval names (from the Medieval Names Archive) - http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/database/

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

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Precedents:

• Precedents of the SCA College of Arms - [[2]]
• Morsulus Heralds Website - [[3]] (to search the LoARs and Precedents)

From the June 1993 LoAR: obtrusively modern with legal name allowance

Jay
Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme	1993.06	Jay is documented only as a noun and surname in period; as it's the client's mundane given name, it was submitted under the aegis of Rule II.4. Such submissions, while usually acceptable, can be returned if the name is "obtrusively modern". We find Jay to be obtrusively modern, by virtue of its sound: it sounds like an initial, as in J. P. Morgan, and thus post-period. We might have considered this acceptable as a "bird name", akin to Robin, had we been shown a common pattern of usage that birds were used as given names in period. But we could think of no examples offhand, save Robin; and one can make a good case that the bird's name derived from the given name (a diminutive of Robert) rather than the reverse. Without period examples, Jay must be considered intrusively modern, and unacceptable even under the Legal Name Allowance. (Jay MacPhunn, June, 1993, pg. 23)

http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/Compatible.html

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