ÆTHELMEARC COLLEGE OF HERALDS - commentary archive
Letter of Intent #115
Jehan de la Marche

My basic comment on this name is that the documentation may well be sufficient to justify it, but it does not seem to follow the usual conventions for Old English names.
The documentation does cite one instance of two names directly following each other taken as a patronymic, and one good instance may be enough, but the February 2005 Letter of Acceptances and Rejections says "In Old English patronymics and metronymics are formed by putting the genitive (possessive) case and adding sunu (son) or dohtor (daughter)."  It is my personal impression that that form would be much the more usual one, so that the patronymic for Aethelweard should be "Aethelweardessunu" or the like (I am not sure whether the "s" would be double. I did do OE in graduate school, but that was a while ago.)  Of course, a lot of the surviving documents use Latin so what they actually say is more like "filius Aethelweardi" which is no help to us in deciding real OE usage.
I might also comment that as far as conventional usage goes, my observation is that while an individual might have both a byname and a patronymic, it was very unusual to use both together in any one document.  One might see Brada Boda or Brada Aethelweardessunu, but not Brada Boda Aethelweardessunu, at least most of the time. Again, I do not deny the possibility of a triple name, but if the submitter wants one that usage should probably be separately documented.
Just as an extra, I may say that while the citations given may well suffice, I did search the online Domesday Book at the British National Archives, and found there are 548 instances of Aethelweard in Domesday, the first being folio 101 recto in Shebbear, Devon, and 121 instances of Boda, the first being folio 48 verso in West Dean, Wiltshire or Hampshire. My impression, though I cannot be sure without looking at all the instances in full text, is that Boda may usually be used as a personal name rather than a byname. For example, in that first instance my copy of the Alecto/Penguin translation reads "Boda held it (the land) of King Edward in alod."  There are no instances of Brada in Domesday, but as long as the submitter has one elsewhere that does not matter.
Count Jehan de la Marche
Millrind Herald