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 a masculine name found in Latin records from early 13th-century Germany. It isn’t obviously dithematic in nature, nor does it bear any resemblance to any other name we’ve come across so far. So it is a true mystery:
Have you come across this name before, or have any ideas what its origin might be? Please share in the comments!
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This must be Lat. hirsutus (= pilosus, “hairy”), found on pp. 15 and 230 (comes Hirsutus) of the same source (Codex Diplomaticus ordinis Sanctae Mariae I). Hirsutus/Hyrsutus in MGH Leges II 280-1 and 403. See entry in Du Cange:
https://books.google.com/books?id=TeBId2PKXOgC&pg=PA453
Additionally, there was a title Raugraf (modern spelling) whose Latin equivalent was comes (h)irsutus; it was also the name of a German noble family. For some examples of the German word see the Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch s.v. Raugraf; some examples of the Latin title can be seen here.
Given the locations of Elmstein (Elbinstein) and Bosenheim (Businsheim), I suspect that comite Irsuto here refers to an unnamed member of the noble family; unfortunately, it had already split into two lines, so there are at least two possibilities.