ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1287 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1287 ************************************ From: "S Friedemann" 13 Oct 1998 Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for information about , which you intended to mean "Golden Lady of the Quiet Dark," as a 14th to 16th century Irish woman's name. Here is the information we have found. It appears that you have contacted us on behalf of a client. If this request has been for your own education, please excuse this assumption. We prefer to work directly with the client in order to minimize the chances of any mis-interpretation when information is passed through a second party. If this request is for a client who has e-mail or web access, we can provide further help to the client if he or she asks us directly. If not, thank you for passing the query along. appears to be a mistake for the feminine name . (The slash represents an accent over the previous letter). The earlier period form was a popular name in 12th century Ireland. [1,2]. It would be appropriate for your client's period also. Both spellings are pronounced \OHR-lah\. does not appear to be a correct Irish name. Unfortunately, we have not seen anything in period Irish names resembling your client's proposed byname (nickname). and are not Irish words. Even if they were, a phrase meaning "of the Quiet Dark" is not like any period Irish surname that we've seen. Locative bynames (nicknames based on place of residence) were quite rare in Irish names. For more information on Gaelic feminine names, we suggest you or your client read the following article in our library: "Feminine Names From the Index to O'Brien's _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_" http://www.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html Most records of Irish women identify them as their fathers' daughters. For example, O/rlaith the daughter of Conn would have been known as "O/rlaith daughter of Conn." The following articles in our library have Irish men's names that you could choose your father's name from. "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland" http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100/ The names in this article are slightly early for your period, but if you choose a few that you are interested in, and write again, we'd be happy to research the correct form for your period, as well as help you construct a period name with these elements. We hope that this letter has been useful to you, and that you will not hesitate to write again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Talan Gwynek, and Arval Benicoeur. For the Academy, --Aryanhwy merch Catmael Caermyrdin October 13, 1998 --------------------------------------- References: [1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990). [2] O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).