Outage update + Mystery Monday: Wurgitan

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.

But first! A huge shout-out to our technical guru, Dr. Joel Uckelman, who got the site back up and running again Saturday evening. What should have been a simple server upgrade turned into a whole row of dominoes collapsing; first, it turned out that our original hosting service was not equipped to handle the upgrade, and the first we knew of this was when we tried rebooting the machine and it wouldn’t. We switched providers, he set up an entirely new virtual machine and server, only time find that when he tried to restore all the data via rsync, the connection kept getting dropped after 10-15 seconds, making it completely impossible to rebuild the site. After a couple of rounds with customer service, which regularly got escalated up to the next level, it became clear that (a) it was a network issue on their end, not our end and (b) they weren’t interested in doing the legwork to find out what the issue was and fix it. So, bye-bye hoster 2, on to hoster 3. He set up a new virtual machine Friday night, and thankfully by the end of Saturday we were able to have the entire site restored. If you’ve ever benefited from the DMNES and would like a way to say thanks, feel free to buy him a beer or a coffee if you’re ever in the area. The hard work of the editorial team would be nothing without the technical infrastructure to make the data available to the world.

Today’s Mystery Monday name is from the Redon cartularies, a dithematic Breton name where we’ve identified the prototheme but not the deuterotheme:

Our resources for Breton names are, unfortunately, rather limited; so if an element or name doesn’t appear in what we have, we’re generally pretty much at a loss. If any of you, dear readers, have better Breton resources than we do, we’d love to know what you have to say about this name! Please share in the comments.

Mystery Monday: Riskipoe

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 9th C masculine name from the Redon Cartularies. Because it doesn’t resemble any other name that we’re familiar with, we’re going to assume that this means it’s Breton in origin. 🙂

Anyone want to offer another suggestion? If you’ve got any thoughts, please share them in the comments!

Mystery Monday: Kenetlor

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.

Do we have any Breton scholars in the house? If so, today’s name is for you! It’s a 9th C masculine name from the Redon Cartularies. The prototheme may be related to Old Breton ken, cain/Middle Welsh cein ‘handsome, splendid warrior’, but that wouldn’t explain the -et-, and we also don’t know enough Old Breton to be able to identify -lor. If you’ve got any thoughts, please share in the comments!

Mystery Monday: Briant/Brianda

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 we’ve actually got TWO names, because we have a passing suspicion that one is the feminine form of the other. The first is Briant/Brient, which is found in France between the 12th and 14th centuries:

These French examples are from Paris and Chartres, both in the north, which makes it tempting to associated the name with Proto-Brythonic *brigonos, and to claim a Breton connection.

But if we take the possible feminine form — Brianda — the evidence for this name that we have makes the Breton connection seem less likely, for our examples of Brianda are from Italy and Spain, not France — this would be quite far south and west to find a Breton-influenced name:

Perhaps we’re wrong in connecting the two names. Perhaps we’re wrong about the origin of Briant. Do you have any thoughts? Any French examples of Brianda? Please share in the comments!

Nature names: Sun, stars, and sky

Let’s turn our attention from the trees and the forests up to the heavens! In this post we consider names with linguistic roots in the celestial.

Stars

We’ve talked about Stella on the blog before, as an example of a name which many people think is modern, but which has actually been in use since at least the 15th C. It’s identical with the Latin word for ‘star’.

The origin of the Biblical name Esther is disputed, but one possible origin is the Persian word for ‘star’. This is a canonical example of a Protestant name, coming into use in the 16th C in French, Dutch, and English contexts.

The sun

Old Breton sul ‘sun’ (related to Latin sol) was a common prototheme in compound Breton names. We have examples of Sulhoiarn, Sulwal, and Sulwored (coming out in the next edition), as well as the monothematic name Sulon.

Next we have another Biblical name, Sampson, deriving from a Hebrew word for the sun. This name was surprisingly popular in France and England in the 12th century, though it was used sporadically in other times and places.

In this context let’s include names relating to dawn and sunrise: Orienta and Aurisma are both found in early 9th C France, and have etymological connections with dawn.

The heavens

The heavens generally are the root of two masc/fem pairs of names of Latin origin: Celeste and Celestus, and their derivatives Celestina and Celestine

Gods and goddesses

Lastly, we have two names which are connected to celestial phenomenon via the name of a god or goddess. The popular Welsh name Llywellyn derives from two god names, the second being the name of a sun god perhaps related to Apollo. The feminine name Tamar has two distinct origin; the examples we have so far represent the Biblical name of Hebrew origin, but the name also occurs in Georgia as the name of a sky goddess.

‘Love’-ly Names for Valentine’s Day

Today is an good excuse to take a tour through names in the Dictionary that derive from words related to love.

Latin

Latin amo “I love” gives us a wealth of names, both masculine and feminine. The participle amandus/amanda ‘meant to be loved’ becomes Amant and Amanda, and the adjective amatus/amata ‘loved, beloved’ gives rise to Amat and Amata. On the active side of things, amator ‘lover’ turns into the name Amadore. From the Old French development of the Latin root, we have Ami and Amy, and then finally there are the compounds: Amadeus ‘beloved by God’ is wholly Latin, while the lovely Amadilde displays the unusual combination of a Latin prototheme with a Germanic deuterotheme.

Latin carus/cara ‘dear, beloved, loved’ was popular in Italian developments, including Caro and Cara simpliciter, and the compounds Bellacara, Carabella, Caradonna, and Deocar. The superlative form of the adjective is found in Carissima.

Finally, the Latin goddess name Venus is the root of the name Venerio (and also the word ‘venereal’, so we wouldn’t recommend this option to anyone seeking a name for their baby.)

Celtic

The root of the romantic Welsh name Angharad is a Proto-Celtic word for ‘love’.

The Old Breton word cum can mean both ‘gentle’ and ‘beloved’, and appears in the name Iarncum.

Hebrew

In rare cases, the name Dodo can derive from a Hebrew word meaning ‘beloved’. A more well-known Hebrew name with this meaning is David.

Slavic

The Slavic element drag, drog, drah ‘precious, beloved’ is a popular theme, found in Dragoslav.

Germanic

Old English is where we must turn for names of deriving from a Germanic element meaning love, specifically, lēof ‘dear, loved’. Here on the feminine side we have Loveday as well as, possibly, Lovewell, though the origin of the latter is uncertain, and on the masculine side Lefchild, Lefsy, Lefward, and Lefwin.

Greek

Finally, we have two names incorporating Greek φίλος ‘dear, loved, loving’: Philip and Theophilus.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Mystery Monday: Haelgugur

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.

Here’s one for the Breton experts!

The prototheme is Old Breton hael ‘generous, noble’, a relatively common theme found in the names Brithael, Haelcar, Haelhoiarn, Haelnou, Haeloc, and Haelwaloe, but we don’t recognize the deuterotheme. If you have any thoughts of what it might be, please leave a comment!

Mystery Monday: Cadlon

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 of Breton origin, from the Redon cartularies. The prototheme is easily identifiable, as it shows up in many early Breton and Welsh names, but the deuterotheme is opaque to us. We have found one other example of it, in the probably feminine name Prostlon. The element may be a reduced form of Old Breton uuallon,Old Welsh uualaun, uualon ‘valorous’, but this is only a conjecture. Does anyone have any alternatives? Or support for this conjecture? Leave a comment below!

Cadlon

Publication of Edition 2015, no. 3

We’re pleased to announce the publication of Edition 2015, no. 3 of the Dictionary, the last edition planned for this year. The new addition has over 1700 entries (up from 1359 in the previous edition), with over 35,900 citations (more than 8,000 more than the previous edition). There are 633 feminine names and 1083 masculine names, and two of uncertain gender. This edition broadens our coverage to the following regions/countries: Ireland, Portugal, Brittany, Wales, Lithuania, Ukraine, and substantially deepens our coverage of the following countries: Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Estonia, Finland (as well as having new citations for Italy, Germany, France, England, etc.).

Come, spend a few minutes browsing, maybe you’ll find a new favorite name, such as Belhonor or Frotbald or Llywellyn, Wistrilde or revisit old favorites to see what new and unusual spellings you can find.