Names from 13th Century Northumberland

by Sara L. Uckelman (known in the SCA as Aryanhwy merch Catmael)

© 2004, 2005 Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 26Sep06

Introduction

The following names of roughly 1070 men and women are from the Assize Roll of Northumberland, 40 Henry III. (A.D. 1256). Without exception, the given names of the documents are Latinized. The bynames, depending on their type, are either in Latin or in the vernacular. Relational bynames, such as 'son of', 'wife of', etc., are generally all in Latin. Locative bynames use the Latin preposition de, with the place name generally in the vernacular. The few descriptive bynames are in the vernacular. Occupational bynames, which are the rarest, can be either in Latin or the vernacular.

Virtually all of the women in this document are identified as the wife of someone. Oftentimes, a woman's husband has been mentioned just preceding her, and so an entry for a woman might look like Agnes uxor ejus 'Agnes, his wife'. Other times, the man's name is specified explicitly.

Feminine Given Names

Below are listed the feminine given names and women's bynames found in this document. The given names are arranged listed in their Latin nominative form, and arranged by frequencey. The bynames are sorted by frequency of type. You can also browse the raw data for this article.

The forms found in the document are Latin forms that are appropriate for Latin contexts only, e.g., written documents or some church and university settings where the spoken language was Latin. The spoken English form of the name often differed from the Latin documentary name. I have listed the expected vernacular in the final column. These vernacular forms come from Talan Gwynek, "Feminine Given Names in A Dictionary of English Surnames" (SCA: KWHS Proceedings, 1994; WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997).

Feminine Bynames

Masculine Given Names

As with the women's names, the men's given names were all recorded in Latin, and I have listed them by their standard Latin nominative form. These spellings are appropriate for Latin contexts only and do not necessarily represent the vernacular (spoken) form in use at this time. Where known, I have listed the likely vernacular form.

Sources:

Great Britain. Assizes (Northumberland). Three early assize rolls for the county of Nortymberland, sæc. XIII. (Durham [Eng.] Published for the Society by Andrews and Co., 1891.)