Onomastics – Techniques of Digital Heraldry

Heraldic Registration Basics Redux

At the invitation of the Canton of Northpass, I ran an introductory session today about how participants in the SCA can register historical names and armory.

I used my “Heraldic Registration Basics” document as the basic outline for the class, although I glossed over some sections and went into additional detail in others.

My thanks to the class participants for the questions and comments during the class; the ensuing discussions inspired me to add a few more paragraphs to my notes so I can better cover those topics the next time.

On the Heraldic Submissions for the Ranged Weapons Peerage

The introduction of the proposed name and insignia for the new ranged-weapons peerage has provided a rare glimpse into an uncommon occurrence in the Society; a decade has passed since the last time this happened, and it’s unlikely another will be added any time soon.

As shown on the August 15 Laurel letter of intent, the proposal is for the name “Order of Esperance” and a tinctureless, fieldless badge of “A set of nesting scale weights within and conjoined to a mascle fleury at the upper point.”

Geographic and Linguistic Indexes of DMNES

I was intrigued by a recent blog post by Anéžka Liška z Kolína, in which she describes a technique for locating names in the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources from a particular region of interest.

However, it seemed to me like there ought to be an easier way to quickly find the relevant sources for such an exploration — a quick way to see all of the bibliographic entries related to a given region and language.

As DMNES doesn’t currently provide such an index, I made a simple mirror of the site and whipped up a quick-and-dirty Perl script to look for citations and build an index page:

A Geographic Bibliography of DMNES

The Crown Province’s Shibbøleðr

Newcomers and neighbors of the Crown Province inevitably run into a tricky question: how do you pronounce Østgarðr?

There are (at least) three potential pitfalls packed into this one word, and even many long-time residents habitually get one or two of them wrong.

Continue reading “The Crown Province’s Shibbøleðr”

Name Change for Appleholm & Whyt Whey

The Canton of Whyt Whey was founded in the late 1980s, with its name registration appearing on the January 1990 LoAR. In the decades since, the original population has moved out of our region and been replaced by a new generation of participants, for whom the old name didn’t have the same valence, and over the last few years an effort was undertaken to consider possible changes. Following a great deal of thought, the populace settled on Appleholm as its new name, for which the forms were submitted this month.

Appleholm is a constructed Middle English place name.
Continue reading “Name Change for Appleholm & Whyt Whey”

April First Submissions

Every year on the first of April, the heralds of the Society for Creative Anachronism post mock submissions of historical names and armory. You can browse an archive of these letters via the College of Heralds Imaginary.

We generally attempt to adhere to the conventions expected for normal letters of intent, including source citations and armorial rules, but our standards for documentation and style are somewhat relaxed for this humorous purpose.

Below are entries I came up with this year; some of them appeared on the Eastern and Imaginary letters. You’ll notice that a majority of them reflect the East’s theme for the year: desserts. Continue reading “April First Submissions”

Name and Device for Engel der Pfau

Engel der Pfau is a skilled fencer with a flamboyant Landsknecht persona who recently became the rapier champion of our local group.

He decided it was time to register a device, and asked for “an angry, fighting, pissed off peacock, his tail plumes out” on a red and black field. Continue reading “Name and Device for Engel der Pfau”

Name and Device for Hrotger the Tervingi

Hrotger had been using his name for many years without registering it, but was inspired to do so when he encountered my post of simple field-only armory.

In comparison to the simplicity of his chosen armory, researching his chosen name was significantly more difficult, because documentary sources for Germanic peoples in the period immediately following the collapse of the Roman Empire are somewhat limited, and it is not a culture with which I have much familiarity — an interesting challenge, and a good learning opportunity. Continue reading “Name and Device for Hrotger the Tervingi”

Name and Device for Arthur von Eschenbach

Arthur had already selected a name and armory in consultation with another herald, Francesco Gaetano Grèco d’Edessa, so preparing his submission forms was a simple matter of illustration and onomastic research.

Per fess argent and sable, a cross gules and in chief two fleurs de lys sable.

“Arthur” is an English masculine given name. It is attested to the sixteenth century, appearing in “The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources” (S.L. Uckelman, ed. 2018).

English given names may be borrowed into sixteenth-century German names under the terms of the February 2015 cover letter. Continue reading “Name and Device for Arthur von Eschenbach”

Frequency of Last Names

Following up on my recent post with the most common first names in the Society’s armorial, here’s a list of the hundred most common last names registered to date.

It’s no surprise that last names are more diverse than first names, so this round up of the most popular bynames in the Society doesn’t have anything that rises to the level of Bill, Bob, Mike, and Tom found in my recent post.

Still, there are clearly some entries here that are relatively common, and it’s an interesting mix of types, including locative, patronymic, descriptive, and occupational bynames. Continue reading “Frequency of Last Names”