Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn’t yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name’s origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish to browse other Mystery Monday names, there is an index.
Today’s name is another one from the Czech Republic. (This is not a coincidence. We’d love to get a Czech expert onto our team to fill our current gap.) We have two 14th C citations of it from Latin records. Do you recognize the name? Do you have any other examples of it?
Chlumecky also has Welislawa et Nahrad de Ostrowan 1378 in Nr. 411, p. 113 and Welislawa cum Nahradone filio suo in the following entry. On p. XLIX, in the index of names, he gives the standard form as Náhrad. Beyond that I can’t help, except to note that there are a Czech noun náhrada ‘replacement, substitute’ and adjective náhradní ‘spare (held in reserve)’, presumably related, given their senses, while ná hrad is a meaningful phrase ‘to the castle’. You could be looking at an original byname that has become a forename.
The castle!! How cool 😀