Herald Games

[lumineaux]

Since I know I have some new or new-ish herald types who read my deranged rantings, I'm doing to see if I can draw you into playing some heraldic educational games.  Yes, I put this out on the ekheralds list too.  If you're reluctant to comment/play along there, you mind find this a somewhat "safer" forum.

The game now is Period Or Not?   Are any of the following names documentable to period under current SCA College of Arms standards?  Citing documentation for why you think Period or Not will get you extra credit.

We'll start with some women's names --
Fiona
Miriel
Aislinn
Vienna
Violet

HINT: reading the last few Eastern ILoIs and the comments on them will give you some of the answers.

The rest of you non-herald types can play along too - I think you'll be surprised by the answers.

Comments

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

Fiona is an SCA-compatible name that was ruled as such in April of 1981. In May of 2008 all SCA-compatible names were ruled non-registerable unless new evidence of period usage could be found for individual names. Fiona is one of the names disallowed.

Miriel can be found in Bardsley p. 581 s.n. Pamphilion: Miriel Pampilion 1273

Aislinn is also an SCA-compatible name that is no longer allowed.

Violet is a perfectly fine Scots name, being found in "Scots Women's Names 1464-1598" 13 times, dated between 1545 and 1587.

Vienna is the modern name of the capital of Austria - I have my doubts as to it's viability as a first name, but could be wrong.

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

Well, of course you know this stuff! ;-)
After the new folks get a chance to chime in, I'll talk about Vienna.

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

You notice I stayed away from the East Kingdom list. :-) But, sometimes one does want to show that the knowledge is there. :-D :-D You can certainly 'copy' my answers if you want or need to in 'proof', especially the first four.

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

Vienna is found as a female given name s.n. Viena in this article: "Names from Sixteenth Century Venice" by Juliana de Luna (http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~grm/signs-1485-1636.html)

[farmhouse-ghost.livejournal.com]

Ohhh ohhh, I know the answer to that one :)

(thanks to you, Alys!)

[lissa510.livejournal.com]

what is "sca-compatible"? I am guessing from your comments that they are doing away with the category of names?

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

SCA-compatible is a category of first names that have been registered for many years. Most of them were 'medieval-oid' in nature - found a lot in fantasy novels or in legends, but not shown to have been used by regular people in our time period of study. There were a series of rulings, over the years, putting names like 'Fiona' and 'Aislinn' and a few others into this category.

In the May 2008 Cover Letter, with much discussion noted, the following announcement was made:

BEGIN COPY:

Therefore, as of the May 2009 decisions meetings, we declare that no new name elements or name patterns will be ruled SCA-compatible, that all names previously ruled SCA-compatible are no longer SCA-compatible and that in order for them to be registered, documentation meeting the same standards as for non-SCA-compatible names will be required.

END COPY

There were four names that were listed as having met that last bit - documentation meeting the same standards - in that same announcement.

If you want to read the whole thing, go to:

http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2008/05/08-05cl.html

and scroll down to 'From Pelican: SCA-Compatible Names'.

[moonandtree.livejournal.com]

What is an eastern IloI?

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

That's short for Internal Letter of Intent. It's the mechanism where name and device submissions are initially circulated for comment by heralds internally within the East.

[hlwoods.livejournal.com]

Found your lj via via via, and was fascinated by these questions (even if I am six months late to the party.) Mind if I friend?

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

Sure. I'm not all that interesting and many of the entries are locked in various degrees of filtering, but sure.

[hlwoods.livejournal.com]

I like the public entries I've read so far, and at some point I need to get my stuff together to register a name for the SCA. (Tricky bit; I want to use the mundane exception for my real first name, which is a tolkienoid character. Last name will be dutch version of "the weaver" for various reasons.)

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised at how many Tolkien-like or Tolkien names are actually period in different languages. For instance, Miriel is perfectly period English. What do you want for your given name?

de weuer is the period Dutch byname meaning "the weaver". You can find that here: "Dutch Names 1358-1361" by Sara L. Uckelman (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/dutch/bynamesE14.html)

[hlwoods.livejournal.com]

"Eowyn" which isn't. Period, that is. I am just very very bad at responding to 'new' names, and since that's my real first name, that's the one I'm hoping to register. (Have driver's license and passport to prove it, and all.)

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

Actually, Eowyn can be documented by combining known Old English elements; Old English is one of those "mix n' match" languages where you can extrapolate names from existing elements.

But an Old English given name doesn't quite match with a 14th century Dutch byname, so you're probably best off relying on the Legal Name Allowance.

[hlwoods.livejournal.com]

Hey, if I could find an Old English byname that translated to "the weaver" I would not be at all upset. I'm not seriously set on dutch, although I would find it deliciously ironic due to mundane considerations.

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

That can probably be done. Occupational bynames are a lot easier to document than a lot of things people ask for.

[hlwoods.livejournal.com]

Who would I ask?

Basically, my persona is ... well ... a weaver. I'm currently going nuts over tabletweaving. (Kingdom A&S is less than 2 weeks ago. Must finish learning 3/1 twill.) I would like to keep my mundane name so I will have a name I respond to.

We had previously considered viking but couldn't make that work. Any kind of germanic I would adore, since I have ties back to that area. But seriously, not picky. I need a name so people have something to call me beyond Crazy Tabletweaving Newbie. :)