Eastern Crown Commenting Group
Commentary on the {AE}thelmearc Internal Letter of Intent dated April 2, 2004
The group included Istvan Eastern Crown, Kat'ryna Diademe, Gisela vom Kreuzbach, Ellesbeth Donofrey, Tiernan Redwolfe, and Seamus mac Duibne.
Commentary submitted this 24th day of April, 2004.
1. {AE}ldric of Logan - the submitter should be aware that the chief will not necessarily be drawn this way. Our local scribe says "I would draw it so that the entirety of the dances were below the roses, and it wouldn't necessarily get exactly three dances." We were concerned about the position of the wings -- we didn't think they were actually 'inverted'. Then we found http://www.nwywre.com/herald/HeraldryforScribes.html, which has something reasonably close as the emblazon for inverted and addorsed.
3. Aidan Ransford - the name Aidan is documented as Irish, which is to say, Gaelic. It is NOT a saint's name, so it isn't treated specially. There are over 300 years of difference, so that's one weirdness. Ramsford is English. Gaelic/English is a weirdness. This name would have to be returned, but The September 2000 LoAR says:
Aidan is the usual English form of the Irish given name {A'}ed{a'}n and was very familiar both in Ireland and in England for most of our period as the missionary {A'}ed{a'}n was sent to Iona to proselytize in northern England and who founded the monastery at Lindisfarne ({O'} Corr{a'}in and Maguire , Gaelic Personal Names, pp. 13-14).
OCM also says 'It was borne by some 21 saints among whom were St. {A'}ed{a'}n of Louth.... Perhaps the most famous bearer (continue as above about the missionary, resume with) 'The name is commonly anglicised Aidan and Edan.
We therefore disagree with both Boke and with Comet's group. There is no weirdness whatsoever. It's acceptable as a Saint's name throughout period. Precedent is from the September 2001 Cover letter:
So, in summary, given names which can be documented as the given name of a saint may be registered as a given name. The use of a name documented as a saint's name carries no weirdness in and of itself. The only weirdnesses that derive from using that name come from the lingual mix of the submitted form of the saint's name with the rest of the submitted name.
Blazon-fu: Argent goutty, on a fess azure a bridge of two spans argent.
4. {E'}ta{'i}n inghead Ruaidr{i'} may be in aural conflcit with Edan inghean an Druiadh (Dec 2000, via {AE}thelmearc). Probably not, but one never knows, especially one that doesn't really understand Gaelic pronunciations. It does need to be returned if the original paperwork doesn't actually have the accent as {i'} in the personal name, since the header in OCM is actually {E'}ta{i'}n.
5. Kj{o/}tvi Thorgrimsson - the documentation from Geirr-bassi supports the form {TH}orgrimsson, not Thorgrimsson.
6. Simon Savastian Caminante - while there does seem to be sufficient contrast with both the field and the cross, the weasel appears to be barely overall. Elsbeth says "That's barely enough weasel to do the job! It should be thicker if it's going to be called golden!". At least one of the commenters (yeah, he's new) thought it was a tertiary. The URL for Julianna's article should be included, especially since the actual title of the article is "Spanish Names from the Late 15th Century." It can be found at http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/isabella/index.html The names are all found as cited, and the construction of the patronymic 'Savastian' is plausible. The main issue is documenting two bynames from 15th century Spain. The same article lists a 'Alsonso Garcia Carrasco' in the 'full names' section, with 'Carrasco' being found as an 'other' name. Similarly 'Gara Alvarez Osorio' and Garc{i'}a Fernandes Cano, where 'Cano' is given as 'grey, hoary'. Note that the only other names of this pattern where Julianna identifies them as 'other' names in the entire article are Pedro Gutierres Carral, Rodrigo Arias Maldonado, Ruy Sanches Capata ('shoe'), and Sancho Garica {C,}orrilla ('skunk'). So it's rare, but registerable.