Throwback Thursday: Estonian nicknames

Back in December 2015 our editor-in-chief, Sara L. Uckelman, asked why was it in the Estonian name data, that “the nickname forms were more common than full forms”? For Throwback Thursday today, we’re revisiting this topic with some research that partially addresses the question:

The short answer is that it is an artefact a lot of our name data coming from sources that focus on Wackenbücher. These are socage registers that not only record the obligations of peasants to their manors, but also details such as the names of the heads of the peasant households. So a lot of the examples of names of Estonians in the Dictionary belonged to the indigenous peasants, as well as wealthier Europeans who had settled in the territory.

In Anti Selart (2016:182)’s article on the adoption of Christian given names in the Baltics, he argues that the form that a name took in medieval Estonia indicated social status:

For instance, when a merchant became a member of the City Council, Hans became her Johann (“Master Johann”). In the sixteenth century Estonia (no earlier records are available), a social gradation of certain peasant name forms is visible. For example, Hans has a higher status than Hannos, Jaagup is finer than Jaak and Peeter is better than Peep.

And the names we have listed in the DMNES seems to reflect reflect this hierarchy. The urban members of the Tallinn Table Guild (Tafelgilde), part of the Great Guild established by the German merchants of the city (Mänd 2017), are called names like Peter, Jakop, Johan or Hans, while those associated with rural manors on the island of Hiiumaa recorded with names like Peep, or Jake.

While the Dictionary aims to record given names used in Europe between 500 and 1600, it does not include biographical information about individuals like a prosopographical database. But once you start trying to answer the question of “why” diminutives and hypocoristics were so popular in medieval Estonia, the answers you find are fascinating.

(Many thanks to Rebecca Le Get, whose many year’s study in Baltic names resulted in this info.)

References and Further Reading:

Mänd, A. 2017. “Table Guilds and Urban Space: Charitable, Devotional, and Ritual Practices in Late Medieval Tallinn” In: Space, place, and motion. Locating confraternities in the late medieval and early modern city: 21-46.

Palli, H. 1961. “Eesti isikunimede kasutamisest meie rahva vanema ajaloo (XII–XVI saj.) uurimisel.” Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Toimetised. Ühiskonnateaduste. 10: 132–142.

Selart, A. 2016. “A new faith and a new name? Crusades, conversion, and baptismal names in medieval Baltics”, Journal of Baltic Studies 47(2): 179-196.

Names of Twins: 16th C Warwickshire

One thing that’s really fun about baptismal registers is seeing the incidence of twins being baptised, and what their names are. (A friend once did a study of a number of Welsh registers, and found that male twins were disproportionately baptised Thomas, which is an interesting comment on the transparency of the meaning to ordinary people at that time.) Because readers of this blog are likely to also be iterested in what twinsets are being named, we thought we’d do a short post on the names of twins found in the Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, parish register.

Between 1558 and 1600, 26 pairs of twins were baptised: 7 were both girls, 7 were both boys, and 12 were mixed. The pairs were named:

Girl 1	Girl 2	Boy 1	Boy 2	Year
Ales		John		1573
Alicia	Margeria			1565
Anna		Richardus		1561
Anna		Thomas		1561
Anne	Ales			1582/3
Anne		ffrancis		1584/3
		Christopher	Thomas	1579
ffrancis	Jone			1573
		ffrancis	John	1576
Elizabeth	Margret			1578
Isabell	Mary			1575/6
Jana		ffranciscus		1563
		Johannes	Richardus	1594/5
		Johannes	Robertus	1561
		Johannes	Thomas	1564
Jone		John		1589
Jone	Mary			1584/5
Judith		Hamnet		1584/5
Katerina		Johannes		1566
Katherine		William		1585
Katherine		Anthony		1575
Margareta	Maria			1568
Margret		Thomas		1574
Maria		Henricus		1591
		Peter	Thomas	1577
		Richardus	Thomas	1595

Those who know their literary history will spot a famous pair of twins in the list…

The ‘elements’ of names: Earth (part 2!)

So after we posted our first post in what was to be a four-part series (one for each element) on names involving the four elements (read Part 1: Earth), a number of people pointed out that we totally overlooked a candidate for “earth”: ‘rock, stone’!

Well, rather than feeling too sheepish and embarrassed about such an oversight, we figured we’d simply fix this by making a follow-up post. So in Earth-Part-Two we’re going to look at all the names we have that derive from an element meaning ‘rock’ or stone’.

The most classic example is, of course, Peter, deriving from Greek πέτρος ‘rock’. The most well-known bearer of the name, Peter the first Catholic pope (at least from the medieval point of view!), was given his name as a metaphor for the foundation of the church itself. As the Wycliffite translation of the Bible (1395) puts it:

And Y seie to thee, that thou art Petre, and on this stoon Y schal bilde my chirche, and the yatis of helle schulen not haue miyt ayens it. (Matthew 16:18)

As the name of a disciple and pope, Peter was enormously popular in Europe. Our earliest citation is from the end of the 7th C in Germany, and by the time we hit 1600, you can’t turn around without bumping into a Peter or three. Geographically, almost every country that has citations in the database has an example of Peter — it’s even one of the three names we find in Algeria. The popularity of the name is reflected in the diversity and quantity of pet forms witnessed:

Pär, Peczold, Peep, Peireto, Per, Pere, Pereto, Perin, Perino, Perkyn, Perocto, Peron, Perono, Peronet, Perot, Perreau, Perrecars, Perrenet, Perresson, Perreset, Perret, Perrichon, Perrin, Perrinet, Perrod, Perron, Perronet, Perrono, Perrot, Perrotin, Perrusson, Pers, Perucho, Peschel, Peschil, Peschlin, Pescho, Peschyl, Pesco, Pesko, Pesold, Pessek, Pessel, Pesshico, Pessico, Pessko, Pesslin, Pesyco, Peterl, Pethe, Peto, Petrecono, Petreman, Petrezolo, Petricono, Petrin, Petrino, Petriolo, Petrocho, Petrocino, Petrono, Petrosino, Petrussio, Petruche, Petrucio, Petrutio, Piep, Pierel, Pieren, Pieret, Pierozo Pierren, Pierron, Pierrot, Pyotrussa

Of course, given the popularity of the masculine name, it’s no surprise that the feminine form, Petra was also relatively widespread throughout medieval Europe (although it was rare before the late 13th C). What might be surprising is that with one exception, all of our examples are of diminutive forms — too many to list here. Another name that needs to be mentioned in this context is the feminine name Petronilla. The root of this name is the Roman nomen Petronius. Petronius itself may possibly derive from the same Greek root; but it is not clear that it does. Nevertheless, medievally the name was treated as a feminine form of Peter, and it was moderately popular throughout England, France, and the Low Countries, with a handful of examples also turning up in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.

But Greek isn’t the only language to have given us rocky names! We also have two Germanic/Scandinavian elements meaning ‘rock ” or ‘stone’ that were used in monothematic and dithematic names: Old Icelandic hallr ‘rock, stone’, found in the compound Haldor; and Proto-Germanic *stainaz ‘stone’, which gave rise to Old Icelandic steinn, Old English stān, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and Old Dutch stēn, and Old High German stein.

This latter element was quite a popular element, both as a prototheme and as a deuterotheme:

Country	Prototheme	Deuterotheme
England		Alfstan, Brihtstan, Dunstan, Goldstone, Thorsten, Wulfstan
Estonia		Thorsten
France	Steinhard	Thorsten
Germany	Steinhard
Iceland		Thorsten
Ireland		Dunstan, Thorsten
Norway		Thorsten
Scotland		Thorsten
Sweden	Steinarr	Holmsten, Thorsten

The element itself was also used as a standalone, monothematic name: Sten. We have examples from Finland, France, and Sweden.

We could also stretch the definition of “earth” as far as names derived from precious stones, but perhaps we’ll draw the line here and save those for another post on their own sometime!

Three French documents relating to Africa

Most of the time when we’re working through sources culling names from them, our primary interest is in the names themselves, and not the contents of the documents (though sometimes of course you find something interesting, such as a reference to a person you know (I found Peter Abelard once!) or an interesting legal dispute, or socio-economical titbits such as women owning land and donating it to the church). We recently came across a short little article [1] in a 19th C journal that had three documents in it which were absolutely fascinating both from a linguistic/onomastic point of view as well as from a historical point of view, so we thought we’d talk a bit about them here.

One of the by-products of keeping detailed geographical information for each citation is often having to go on investigations to match medieval Latin placename forms with modern places. A lot of times, it’s easy — the common names (e.g., “Parisius”) show up a lot and are linguistically related to their modern forms. Other times, the connection isn’t immediately obvious, especially when it’s a smaller, less important city. (My knowledge of French geography has increased significantly in the last five years.) Usually the first step is to plug the Latin form of the name into wikipedia, and see if there are any hits; quite often there will be some documentary quote in the entry of the relevant modern city that includes the historical form of the name, and then it’s just a matter of triangulating what we know about the city from the document it’s mentioned in to the info in the wikipedia article to confirm that we’ve got the right one (important when there is more than one city with the same, or similar, name). The title of this article, “Chartes Inédits Relatives aux États de Bougie et de Bone (1268-1293-1480)” mentioned two cities — or rather “states” — that I didn’t recognise, but since the introductory material to the article mentioned Marseille, so I figured it would be somewhere in that area.

So I was totally taken by surprised when I found out that “Bougie” is a historic French name for the Algerian city Béjaïa, and that “Bone” (more properly “Bône”) or “Bona” is an old French name for the Algerian city Annaba, aka Hippo, where the great Saint Augustine came from.

Records from/relating to Algeria! From the middle of the 13th-century, Algeria was ruled by the Hafsid sultanate, but there were close connections between it and southern France, and thus these documents fall squarely within the scope of the Dictionary.

The first document, from 1268, is in Latin, and written under the authority of Guillaume Dagenessa, “vicarius” of Marseille, on behalf of Charles, king of Sicily, and concerns the establishment of a consulate at Bougie, with one Hugues Borgonion, a merchant, nominated as consul.

The third document, from 1480, is in Middle French and is from “Loys, par la grace de Dieu, roy de France, conte de Prouvence, et seigneur de Marceille” to “le illustrissime roy de Bone nostre chier amy”, who is, alas, unnamed, but who is the son of “le roy de Thunys”, that is, Tunisia (presumably, Uthman, Hafsid caliph from 1435–1488). The editor of the treatise speculates that the person in question might be Abu Yahya Zakariya, who was caliph of Ifriqiya from 1490-1494. It truly is a shame that the letter does not name its recipient!

The second document, from 1293, is by far the most exciting one. First, it is written not in Marseille about Béjaïa — it is written in Béjaïa, to be sent back to Marseille! Second, it is the first document in Old Occitan that we have had the opportunity to work with for the Dictionary. Three men are named — Guillem de Cadenet, “cavallier et viguier de Marseilha”, the recipient of the letter; and the two authors, Peire Jordan and Peire de Gerusalem, consuls, who are written to Guillem on behalf of all the merchants from Marseille in Béjaïa. (There is something somehow fitting about how out of three men, we only get two names. The popularity of forms of Peter in southern France is distinctive and pervasive, and while we would have loved to have more variety in these scant examples, it is satisfying to see the general pattern reinforced by such a small data set.)

What tremendously exciting documents to have come across, and we look forward to the next edition of the Dictionary which will boast not only its first names in Old Occitan but also its first names from Algeria!

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References:

[1] L. de Mas Latrie, ed., “Chartes Inédits Relatives aux États de Bougie et de Bone (1268-1293-1480)”, appearing in vol. 2 of Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartres (1840-41), pages 388-397.

The return of -cock and -kin

Over a year ago we discussed two unusual English diminutive suffices, -co(c)k and -kin. At the time, we said of -co(c)k:

This suffix was never common, and we don’t currently have any examples in our data, but look forward eagerly to the day when we do!

Well, now we do! So we thought we’d devote a post to revisiting these suffices.

We have recently been working through the 1379 poll tax of the West Riding of Yorkshire, which is delightful in that not only has a number of given names recorded in diminutive form, but also — despite being recorded in Latin — a surfeit of vernacular matronymic and patronymic bynames based on diminutives. In addition to adding the given name citations directly to the Dictionary’s database, we have also been adding the evidence from the bynames to the body of the relevant entries. This data will be available in the next edition.

-kin first. To our previous examples of -kin, we can now add diminutives of William Wilke, Wilken, Wilkin, Wilkyn, and Wylkyn. The -kyn spelling is favored in this dataset; we also have Adken, Adkyn, Atkyn, Attkyn (from Adam), Jonkyn (from John), and Perkyn (from Peter). The suffix was not exclusive to men; our final example, Malkyn, is a diminutive of Mary.

And, *drum rolls*, our two new examples of -cock! Adcok is another diminutive of Adam and Wilkoc is another reduction of William.

These are not the only diminutive suffices we find in this dataset, and they are certainly not the most common ones. We will set about exploring the nicknames of Yorkshire in a future post!

Names of the 12 Disciples

It’s an odd collection of words and phrases that bring people to this blog, but recently someone came here via searching for

names of the disciples in all europe

which struck us as something that would make a nice blog post in itself!

The Biblical disciples (or apostles) are traditionally numbered as 12, though because different gospels name different ones, and also use different names for the same, the numbers don’t always quite add up. Nevertheless, the names of the “canonical” disciples are, in their modern English forms: Andrew; Bartholomew; James, the son of Alphaeus; James, the son of Zebedee; John; Judas Iscariot; Jude/Thaddeus; Matthew; Philip; Simon Peter; Simon the Zealot; and Thomas. (After his betrayal of Jesus Christ, Judas Iscariot was replaced by Matthias). We’ve discussed all of these names before, in posts discussing the influence of Protestantism on the 16th-century naming pool, and in posts discussing the medieval roots of modern names; but here we want to focus on when and where these names were used in Europe:

Country	Andrew	Bartholomew	James	John
Croatia			15th-16th C	15th C
Czech Republic	14th C	14th C	14th C	14th C
England	12th-16th C	12th-16th C	12th-16th C	12th-14th C
Estonia	14th-16th C	16th C	14th-16th C	14th-16th C
Finland	16th C		16th C	16th C
France	11th-16th C	9th C, 11th-16th C	9th C, 12th-16th C	7th C, 9th C, 11th-16th C
Germany	10th-15th C	12th-13th C, 15th C	9th C, 13th-15th C	9th-10th C, 12th-16th C
Hungary	14th C	14th C		14th
Iceland	16th C			15th-16th C
Ireland	12th C	12th C, 16th C	12th C, 16th C	12th C, 16th C
Italy	10th-16th C	12th-16th C	12th-16th C	9th-16th C
Latvia	13th-16th C	15th-16th C	13th C, 15th-16th C	13th-16th C
Lithuania	16th C	16th C	16th C	16th C
Low Countries	13th-14th C, 16th C	14th C, 16th C	13th-14th C, 16th C	12th-14th C, 16th C
Malta	15th C	15th C	15th C
Poland	13th C		13th-14th C	13th-14th C
Portugal		13th C	13th C	12th-13th C
Scotland	14th-16th C	14th C	14th-16th C	11th-16th C
Spain	11th C, 15th-16th C	15th-16th C	15th-16th C	11th-16th C
Sweden	14th-16th C		14th C	14th-16th C
Switzerland	12th-13th C	12th C	12th-15th C	12th-15th C
Ukraine	15th C		15th C	15th C
Wales			12th C, 16th C	13th C, 15th-16th c

 

Country	Matthew/ Matthias	Peter	Simon	Thomas
Croatia	15th C			15th C
Czech Republic	14th C	14th C	14th C	13th-14th C
England	12th-14th C, 16th C	12th-16th C	12th-16th C	12th-16th C
Estonia	14th-16th C	14th-16th C	14th-16th C	14th-16th C
Finland	16th C	16th C	16th C	16th C
France	12th-16th C	9th-16th C	11th-16th C	9th C, 12th-16th C
Germany	12th C, 14th-15th C	7th C, 10th C, 12th-13th C, 15th C	9th-10th C, 12th-13th C, 15th C	13th-15th C
Hungary	14th C	14th C	14th C	14th C
Iceland				16th C
Ireland		12th C, 16th C	12th C	12th C, 16th C
Italy	12th-16th C	10th-16th C	13th-16th C	13th-16th C
Latvia	13th C, 15th-16th C	13th-16th C	13th C, 16th C	13th C, 15th-16th C
Lithuania	16th c	16th C	16th C	16th C
Low Countries	14th C, 16th C	13th-14th C, 16th C	14th C, 16th C	13th-14th C, 16th C
Malta		15th C
Poland		13th-14th C		13th C
Portugal	12th C	12th-13th C
Scotland	14th C, 16th C	12th C	12th C, 14th-15th C	11th-16th C
Spain	15th-16th C	11th-13th C, 15th-16th C	15th-16th C	15th-16th C
Sweden	14th-15th C	14th-16th C	14th C	14th-16th C
Switzerland		12th-15th C		12th-13th C
Ukraine	15th C	15th C		15th C
Wales	16th C	16th C		15th-16th C

Of course, our data set is by no means comprehensive in coverage, and thus we cannot say whether any gaps demonstrated in this post are due to the incompleteness of our data or due to the fact that the name was not used. However, this is a topic that we can revisit again in a few years, to see if things have changed! One omission, though, is noteworthy: We have not yet found a single example of any form of Jude, Judas, Judah. The legacy of the betrayal lasted long in Christian Europe.

An onomastic calendar: June

• June 1: Anne Boleyn was crowned queen of England in 1533.
• June 2: Richilda of Provence died in 910.
• June 3: Peter Abelard was condemned as a heretic in 1141.
• June 4: Adela of Champagne died in 1206.
• June 5: Saint Boniface was murdered in Frisia in 754.
• June 6: Gustav I of Sweden was elected king in 1523.
• June 7: Robert the Bruce died in 1329.
• June 8: Italian poet Gabriello Chiabrera was born in 1552.
• June 9: Irish saint and missionary Columba died in 597.
• June 10: Frederick Barbarossa drowned crossing a river in 1190.
• June 11: Blessed Yolanda of Poland died in 1298.
• June 12: Cosimo dei Medici was born in 1519.
• June 13: Wat Tyler led the Peasant’s Revolt into London in 1381.
• June 14: Orlande de Lassus, Flemish painter, died in 1594.
• June 15: Lisa del Giocondo was born in 1479.
• June 16: Saint Lutgardis died in 1246.
• June 17: Bolesław I the Brave died in 1025.
• June 18: Painter Rogier van der Weyden died in 1464.
• June 19: Saint Juliana Falconieri died in 1341.
• June 20: Blessed Margareta Ebner died in 1351.
• June 21: Leonhard Rauwolf was born in 1535 and Leonardo Loredan died in 1521.
• June 22: Saint Alban was martyred, in an uncertain year between around 209 and 304.
• June 23: Saint Æþelðryþe died in 679.
• June 24: Philippa Hainault was born in 1314.
• June 25: Eleanor of Provence died in 1291.
• June 26: Roman emperor Julian died in 363.
• June 27: The martyrdom of Crescens is celebrated.
• June 28: Charlotte queen of Cyprus was born in 1444.
• June 29: Abel, king of Denmark, died in 1252.
• June 30: Saint Theobald of Provins died in 1066.

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.

Protestant names: New Testament influences on men’s names (part 2)

We’re in the home stretch with the Biblical names! In this our final post on this sub-topic of our monthly topic, we look at the New Testament men’s names of Greek and Roman origin.

Names of Greek origin

The first batch we can set aside as being unable to tell us anything unique about Protestant naming practices for the same reason we set aside the names of the four evangelists in the previous post: The names of the apostles. Among the apostle names of Greek origin we have we have Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Simon, all of which were popular throughout the Middle Ages across Europe; for similar reasons, the name of the first martyr, Stephen, was also a continual favorite.

So, what New Testament names of Greek origin seem to have gained a new popularity in the 16th C?

Cleopas: The name of the disciple who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus, this name was rarely used in England in the 16th C.

Epaphras (entry still being written): The name of a disciple from Colossae, we have one example of this name from the Protestant Church at Caen in the 16th C.

Theophilus: The name of the person to whom the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were addressed, we also have a single example of the name from Caen in the 16th C.

Timothy: The name of the recipient of two epistles by Paul, Withycombe and Bardsley differ on the use of this name in England; Withycombe notes that the name didn’t come into use until after the Reformation, while Bardsley includes Timothy in the list of Biblical names in use before the Reformation (p. 36). Further research will allow us to arbitrate this question, but in the meantime, we certainly have clear evidence for the use of the name in 16th C England and 16th C French.

Curiously, we don’t (yet) have examples of any of these four names in Dutch Protestant contexts.

Names of Roman origin

In this class of names we have Paul, which like the names of the disciples and Stephen, was used throughout medieval Europe. It was never as popular, though, in England, until the 16th C, though it doesn’t show us quite the same spike in usage that some of the other names we’ve discussed have had.

Which leaves us with Crescent, the name of a minor character, of which we one example from 16th C England.

—

From this we can see that, yes, amongst the Biblical names that first came into use among Protestants in the second half of the 16th C, there was a special predilection for names of Hebrew origin, but the fad for Biblical names was not exclusive to the Hebraic ones, especially amongst the women’s names. Any minor character was fair game — and we have no doubt that as we continue to collect data, we’ll find both more examples of the names we’ve covered in this series, and new examples of obscure Biblical names.

Though we’ve come to the end of the Biblical names, we are not quite done with this series. There is one final class of names which have a right to be called distinctly Protestant names, which we will devote our final postin this series to: Virtue names!

The “most popular” names, for men

Last week we investigated the ‘most popular’ medieval names for women, including a long discursus on why the scare quotes. All the same caveats hold when we turn to look at the men’s names: Without access to systematic data that counts individuals only once and provides the same level of coverage in every place and time, there is no way to say definitively what the most popular medieval given names were.

Unsurprisingly, the list of men’s names that I review on a daily basis because I can pretty much guarantee some editorial assistant has added new citations of is longer than the list of women’s name. And many of the names on it will strike few as surprising (though I personally find it interesting how they cluster into pairs or triples in terms of the letter they start with, and how weighted towards the end of the alphabet they are):

• Charles
• Henry
• Jacob
• John
• Paul
• Peter
• Philip
• Richard
• Robert
• Roger
• Thomas
• Walter
• William

These names have remained enduringly popular, with all of them showing up in, e.g., the top 100 of the Top Names Over the Last 100 Years in the US (John: 2; Robert, 3; William, 5; Richard: 7; Charles, 9; Thomas, 10; Paul: 17; Jacob: 34; Henry: 52; Peter: 55; Walter, 57; Roger, 66; Philip, ; 94note that since this counts individual variant spellings, rather than combining all variants together, this list separates Jacob from James, which comes in at no. 1).

But others on the list may be more surprising — names that have fallen out of common use, or which while still familiar nowadays may not strike one as especially typical of the Middle Ages. These names are:

• Arnold
• Arnulf
• Frederick
• Gerard
• Louis
• Otto
• Ralph
• Theodoric

Of these, the two that I found the most surprising — the ones I hadn’t really realized were as popular as they are until we started compiling such a huge corpus — are Louis and Theodoric. Louis, from its early Latinized form Hludowicus to its modern forms such as Louis, Lewis, Lodovico, Ludwig, and Luis, was an amazingly productive name, showing up in all cultures touched by the Carolingian empire, and, later, France (there being more medieval French kings named Louis than any other name). The popularity of Theodoric can be traced back to Theoderic the Great, ruler of the Ostrogoths at the fall of the western Roman empire. His deeds entered legend, and his name spread across Europe, spawing many variants and diminutives: In fact, more distinct spellings of this name are recorded than any other name we have catalogued so far (and that includes John!). In French, it became T(h)ierry; in Dutch, Derek and Dirk; in High German, Dietrich; in Low German, Diderik. The range of diminutive forms includes examples that a non-expert would scoff at as related: Who would think that Thidemann, Dytlin, Dietz, Tile, Tous, Tijdeke, and Thierrion are all nicknames of the same name?

All of these entries are already quite diverse in the citations they include, but will only become more so in the future. Mark your calendars, we are one week away from the publication of the next edition (our final one of 2015)!