An Onomastic Calendar: May

• May 1: Mathilda of Scotland died in 1118.
• May 2: Anne Boleyn was arrested for treason in 1536.
• May 3: Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, was born in 1415.
• May 4: John Wyclif and Jan Hus are condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance in 1415.
• May 5: Gerberga of Saxony died in 968/9 or 984.
• May 6: Dieric Bouts, Dutch painter, died in 1475.
• May 7: Remigius de Fécamp died in 1059.
• May 8: Pope Saint Benedict II died in 685.
• May 9: Hernando de Alarcón set sail for the Gulf of California in 1540.
• May 10: Emperor Claudius Gothicus was born in 210.
• May 11: Anne of Bohemia, queen consort of England, was born in 1366.
• May 12: Berengaria of Navarre was crowned queen of England in 1191.
• May 13: Julian of Norwich experienced her mystical visions in 1373.
• May 14: Simon de Montfort became de facto ruler of England in 1264.
• May 15: Mary Queen of Scots married her third husband, James, Earl of Bothwell, in 1567.
• May 16: Baldwin I was crowned Latin emperor of Constantinople in 1204.
• May 17: Anne of Denmark was crowned queen of Scotland in 1590.
• May 18: Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II of England in 1152.
• May 19: Saint Alcuin of York died in 804.
• May 20: Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas in 1570.
• May 21: Albrecht Dürer was born in 1471.
• May 22: Saint Rita of Cascia died in 1457.
• May 23: Girolamo Savonarola was burned to death in 1498.
• May 24: Magnus Ladulås was crowned king of Sweden in 1276.
• May 25: Pope Boniface IV died in 615.
• May 26: Saint Augustine of Canterbury died in 604.
• May 27: Ludovico Sforza died in 1508.
• May 28: Caterina Sforza died in 1509.
• May 29: Philip VI was crowned king of France in 1328.
• May 30: Jerome of Prague was burned for heresy in 1416.
• May 31: Manuel I of Portugal was born in 1469.

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An onomastic calendar: January

• January 1: Albert II was crowned king of Hungary and Croatia in 1438.
• January 2: Italian painter Piero di Cosimo was born in 1462.
• January 3: Martin Luther was excommunicated in 1521.
• January 4: Amadeus VI of Savoy was born in 1334.
• January 5: Croatian poet Marko Marulić died in 1524.
• January 6: Philip of Swabia was crowned king of the Romans in 1205.
• January 7: Saint Lucian of Antioch was martyred in 312.
• January 8: Saint Severinus of Noricum died in 482.
• January 9: Marco Polo, Italian explorer, died in 1324.
• January 10: Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, was born in 1480.
• January 11: Michelle of Valois, duchess of Burgundy, was born in 1395.
• January 12: Marie of Brabant, queen of France, died in 1322.
• January 13: St. Remy died in 533.
• January 14: Andrew III of Hungary died in 1301.
• January 15: Elizabeth I of England was crowned in 1559.
• January 16: Isaac Komnenos, son of a Byzantine Emperor, was born in 1093.
• January 17: Alfonso III of Aragon invaded Majorca in 1287.
• January 18: Tamar of Georgia died in 1213.
• January 19: Sten Sure the Younger, regent of Sweden, was mortally wounded in 1520.
• January 20: Byzantine emperor Theophilos died in 842.
• January 21: Pope Paschal II died in 1118.
• January 22h: Walter Raleigh was born in 1552 or 1554.
• January 23: St. Vincent Ferrar was born in 1350.
• January 24: Emperor Hadrian was born in 76.
• January 25: Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter, died in 1586.
• January 26: Eadgyth of England, queen consort of Otto I, died in 946.
• January 27: Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence in 1302.
• January 28: Henry VIII died in 1547.
• January 29: German composer Elias Ammerbach died in 1597.
• January 30: Roman empress Livia was born in 56BC.
• January 31: St Máedóc of Ferns died in 632.

Color names: Silver/White/Grey

This post wraps up our series on color names for October’s monthly topic, and looks at names deriving from words for white/fair, silver, grey, and the like.

Because whiteness was strongly associated in many cultures with purity and innocence, it’s no surprise that these words gave rise to names, particularly in cultures (like Italian) that liked to give augurative names — names that express a desire for the child or child’s future.

Looking at names with elements meaning ‘white’, starting at the beginning of the alphabet, we have a masc./fem. pair Albo and Alba. These names have two possible origins: Either Old High German alb ‘elf’ or Latin albus (m.) or alba (f.) ‘white’. The masculine name Albin can either be a derivative of albus or a nickname for Albert. Looking at Latin roots, we also have a single example of Argenta, derived from an identical Latin word meaning ‘silver’.

Next is another masc./fem. pair, Blanch and Blanche. These could also be said to be of Latin origin, but Latin blancus (m.) or blanca (f.) is ultimately a borrowing of Old High Grman blanc(h) ‘white, pale’. This word also occurs in compound names, such as the amazingly beautiful Blanchefleur ‘white flower’.

The next set of names are Celtic in origin, deriving from Old Welsh gwyn (m.) or gwen (f.) ‘white, fair, blessed’. The Welsh roots of the name Gavin are disputed, but the second element may be gwyn. The feminine form gwen is quite common in Welsh names, both as a standalone name and as a part of compounds such as Gwenllian, Madwen, and Winifred. And the origins of the Arthurian heroine name Guinevere go all the way back to the Proto-Celtic root *windo. The same Proto-Celtic root gave rise to a Germanic tribal name, for the Wends. Tribal names are an interesting subset of elements that show up in dithematic Germanic names, and while words for the Wends were not as common as those for the Goths, they still show their traces in the names Wintbert and Wintbald.

Finally, we have the Old English word for ‘white’, hwīt, which was used in compounds such as Whitehelm as well as a standalone name or as a nickname of any of the compounds using hwīt.

The ‘grey’ names are of interest for two reasons; first, because we covered some of them already in the post on Color Names: Brown, as the root of the element brun has aspects of both brown and grey in its meaning; second, because looking beyond those we have only uncertain hypotheses. Despite its familiarity, the origins of the name Caesar are not entirely known. One folk etymology offered in the late Antique Historia Augusta is that it derives from Latin oculis caesiis ‘grey eyes’. And the origin of the fem. name Griselda is often connected with Proto-Germanic *grēwaz ‘grey’, but there is no clear evidence that this name was used in Germanic contexts, or for any other name which uses *grēwaz as a prototheme or deuterotheme.

We hope you enjoyed our first monthly theme! Next month, in conjunction with National Novel Writing Month we will look at ways in which you can improve your character naming practices when writing historical fiction.