There are a host of brilliantly clever and amusing little bots on twitter, from those that generate poetry (some better, some worse) to ones who tweet gruesome medieval deaths. We recently discovered an excellent onomastic one, Neural Names, “a bot who posts a new name generated by a neural network every 30 minutes”. Check it out — the bot is good. Almost every single name it tweets is alausible 21st C Western name (sometimes more likely American than British, but not surprising given that it’s located in Standard) and the few that aren’t you could easily see in a bad fantasy novel.
But what we’ve been enjoying doing is combine through the autogenerated names to find out which ones are not new creations, but can be found in historical records. We thought we’d share a few of our finds here today!
Avicie is a Latin dative form of Avice, recorded in France in 1260. https://t.co/s3eY70jSjE https://t.co/XAbqhGln5Z
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 14, 2017
The variant Balda is recorded in France c823. https://t.co/c4ihxOIRQh https://t.co/6ULotn2LFE
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 14, 2017
The Latinized form Andricus is recorded in Gascony in 1287. https://t.co/1YOs7gb2Qe https://t.co/6A2eXWOtJs
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 14, 2017
Eline is a popular English and Welsh form of Ellen from the 16th Century. https://t.co/YaFTaz30xy https://t.co/ZThrLerstW
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 14, 2017
<Sabel> is found in 16th C Shropshire, and the Latinized form <Sabella> occurs in Suffolk in 1381. https://t.co/nEA6JCD0rV https://t.co/QzTzXTgtOP
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 15, 2017
The Latin form <Aldina> is recorded near Paris c823. https://t.co/VCelzCQgqN
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 16, 2017
We don't yet have an example of <Orelina>, but it's a bog-standard diminutive form of <Orelia>, recorded in Italian in 1429-30. https://t.co/PlLCaEXnWa
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 19, 2017
<Adelin> is the expected vernacular form of Latin <Adelina>, common in France in the 12th century: https://t.co/4cDbaVju9r https://t.co/CyUIihBw6n
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 19, 2017
Elianor is a Middle English form of Eleanor found in the 15th and 16th C. https://t.co/wVjxJ9IIPR https://t.co/YGWJh9GjLb
— The DMNES (@theDMNES) May 19, 2017
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources 