14th-15th C Given Names in Latin from Switzerland

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

© 2005, 2009, 2012, 2013Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 06Mar13

The following names are taken from an obituary list from the church of Saint Paul in modern day Villeneuve in Switzerland. A precise date for the list cannot be established, but in 1468 the curator of the church, Antoine Gappet, commissioned notary Louis Bouvier recopy and update the list. The list covers a year of deaths, and the people in the list are referrenced in other documents from the third quarter of the 14th century. Therefore, the list can be dated to sometime between roughly 1375 and 1468.

Villeneuve stands right at the border of the French-speaking and German-speaking parts of Switzerland; it is not clear which language (if any) was dominant in the 14th-15th centuries. All of the names were recorded in Latin. These Latin forms are not the forms used in speech. In many cases, we can only make informed guesses about what vernacular form is being represented by a particular Latin form. The names have a distinctly Occitan/Franco-Provençal look to them, so we can look at sources for Occitan names from the same time period to help determine what the possible vernacular forms are.

At this time I have included only given names in this study. This is because of issues with the source I am using, where sometimes it is unclear when a byname element is recorded as it was found in the original manuscript, or if a modernized form has been substituted instead. There were only three given names with this uncertainty; they have not been included at this time. The remaining given names are from 126 women and 152 men.

Feminine names, by frequency, variants grouped together

Masculine names, by frequency, variants grouped together

References

Bissegger, Arthur, Une paroisse raconte ses morts: l'obituaire de l'église Saint-Paul à Villeneuve (XIVe-XVe siècle), (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne, Section d'histoire, Faculté des lettres, 2003.)

Cateline de la Mor, "Names from Fourteenth Century Foix" (SCA: Trimarian Known World Heraldic Symposium, AS XXIX; WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1997) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/cateline/foix.html

Chambers, Frank M., Proper Names in the Lyrics of the Troubadours (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971).

Flutre, Louis-Fernand, Table des noms propres avec toutes leurs variantes, figurant dans les romans du Moyen Age écrits en français ou en provençal et actuellement publiés ou analysés (Poitiers: Centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale, 1962).

Friedemann, Sara L., "Feminine Names from Périgueux, 1339-1340" (WWW: Self-published, 2003) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/perigueux.html

Juliana de Luna, "Occitan Townspeople in the 14th Century" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 2002) http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/juliana/occitan/

Talan Gwynek, "Late Period Feminine Names from the South of France" (WWW: Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1999). http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/talan/latefrenchfem/

Vacca, Giani, "Qualques noms de l'Edat Mejana" (WWW: Self-published, no date). http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7156/noms.html