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 from 14th C Italy, and we have two instances of it from the same source — once in its full form, and once as a diminutive. We have also just found another instance (not yet transcribed, which is why it doesn’t show up in the draft entry yet) from the deathbook of a Benedictine cloister in Obersteier, Austria, in the 13th C.
Given this new Austrian evidence, the odds are high that the name is Germanic in origin, but beyond that we’re uncertain. Do you have any suggestions? Any other examples of the name, either in its full form or as a diminutive? Please share in the comments!
At first glance this looks like a form of Druda (see Forstemann s.v.). In MGH Necr. Germ. II there are examples of Travta (s. XIII) and Trautta (s. XIV).
https://books.google.com/books?id=ujQnOFqor-kC&pg=PA556
This seems almost certain to be the name indexed as Truta in Necrologia Germaniae, Vol. II, Dioecesis Salisburgensis, Berlin, 1904, and variously found there as Truta (9th – 13th c.), Truota (11th – 12th c.), Trůta (11th – 13th c.), Trǒta (11th – 13th c.), Trudte (12th/13th c.), Travta (13th c.), and Trautta (14th c.). It must be a simplex name using the deuterotheme of Gertrude, from PGmc. *þrūþiþō ‘strength’ or trut- ‘maiden, dear’.
Johann Gottfried Biederman, Geschlechtsregister der reichsfrey unmittelbaren Ritterschaft Landes zu Franken löblichen Orts an der Altmühl …, Table CCX, notes a Trauta von Katzenstein 1430.
The name appears to be in current use.
This one is easy. It is a monothematic name formed from the well known and popular name element *þrūþ “strength” that occurs, e.g, in Adeltrude. The development ū -> au started on the Southern fringe of the German linguistic area and spread northward.