Name News

Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn't yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name's origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish…

The name is a 14th-15th C masculine name found in Switzerland:

Today’s name comes from 14th C Germany (Münster, to be precise).

Today’s name looks like it should be easily identifiable as a classical name revived in Renaissance Italy — it has the look of a Latinized name of probably Greek origin (so many Phs…). But if that’s true, we haven’t been able to determine what the root Greek name is!

Today’s name is a mouthful of an early Italian feminine name:

In 1377-1381, the Hundred Years wars have been raging for forty years, and Edward III has just died after his 50-year reign, leaving his grandson, Richard, as heir. Below are the top 50 national totals for first names for men and women living in 1377-81 in England, collated b

Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn't yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name's origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish…

Today’s name is an Italian masculine diminutive from 14th C Friulia. At least — we’re pretty sure it’s a diminutive, because of the suffix -lin(o). But our hypothesis of the root name is merely that: A hypothesis. We’d love to get confirmation one way or another whether Ziro is the correct root name, and would love to see an example of the radiconym.

Today’s name is a 14th C feminine name found in the Czech Republic.

Today’s name is one that is linguistically feminine, but from the context it was not otherwise clear that the person bearing the name, recorded in 14th C Genoa, was a woman:

Today’s name is one of those names where it feels like we should recognize it, but we don’t. We’ve got two examples (two different variant spellings) of it from the same collection of Latin records from Genoa in 1376, and a bit of sleuthing around reveals it also as the surname of a German rabbi,
Joseph Ottolengo, who was given permission in 1558 by Cardinal Madruzzo to print Hebrew books in Trento (neat!). The prototheme Otto is well-known; but just what is the deuterotheme?

Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn't yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name's origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish…

Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn't yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name's origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish…

Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn't yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name's origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish…

Today’s name is (a) definitely Czech, (b) probably a diminutive (given the suffix), and (c) likely masculine (given context; but not necessarily given grammar).

Today’s name is Italian, from late 14th century Genoa.

Two weeks ago I posted George Redmond's top 50 national totals for first names for men and women living in 1377-81 in England. This compiled from male names from 10 counties and female names from 10 counties in the Poll Tax returns of 1377-81 combined to produce a nationa

We seem to be following an Italian trend lately! But this name is only Italian obliquely. One source we’ve been working through (we mentioned it before, in a Mystery Monday post on Uliana) is notarial records from mid-14th century Florence, which records the names of many enslaved men, women, and children, most of “Tartar” origin.

Any Swedish experts in the house? We’ve got a name for you!

Today’s name is a feminine name recorded in Latin in late 13th or early 14th C Bergamo.

Today’s name is from mid-14th century Italy. It’s one of those Latin names that looks like it should be identical with some ordinary word, but no root word appears to be forthcoming.

Sometimes, though, we get a name where all we can do is look at it and go “huh. That looks…Latinate?” Which isn’t saying much when it’s a name from 14th C Italy: