In pursuit of onomastic authenticity...

[mariedeblois]

I am changing my SCA name.

It's a big change, but not an entire change. I'm dropping "Alia" from my name, to just be "Marie de Blois".

This makes my name much more accurate to the time period and location that I'm interested in (14-16th Centuries, France). I've been somewhat dissatisfied with Alia for a while. For one, to the best of my knowledge,

Comments

[aryanhwy]

Nifty. Though you don't actually have to believe Withycombe about being Germanic - Morlet I (32:b) s.n. Ali- has as a feminine name in "Pol. Reims XVII, 65", so she corroborates that it's of Germanic origin.

[brat_grrl]

Please forgive me if I keep calling you Alia though.. I will try to call ya by your other name but... (i is far from perfect!)

Yay for you for becoming more close to your persona! *is impressed*

*hugs you squooshily*

K

[mariedeblois]

Of course. I'm definitely expecting a while of retraining people. ;)

Thanks ... I've been thinking about doing this for a long time now.

[mariedeblois]

Cool! Good to know, though I'm pretty set on the name change.

[katerinfg]

I had always assumed that you were using it in the sense that the eldest daughter of Duke Guillaume X of Aquitaine, who was named after her mother Aenor, was known to her family as "Alia Eanor" (the other Eanor) . . . which eventually morphed into "Eleanor".

[mariedeblois]

An interesting idea. (and for a while I was amused by the meaning "other" for Alia, but I feel less outsiderish these days) I wish I could say I'd been so clever.

[mariedeblois]

Yep!

[masahide]

Hum... I wonder if the name submission of "Marie de Blois" will conflict with this already registered name... you know "Alia Marie de Blois". Might have to return it at Kingdom... :)

Honestly, good for you. I'm always one to approve of getting more authentic for the time period you are interested in.

I can sympathize with people not remembering how you have changed it, and continue calling you "Alia." Heck, I still go by Tali to many people, and that isn't anything compared to the "Fu-dog" that some people want to saddle me with. Mostly I just glare. Glare and point out that I'm wearing a sword. Try that. It might work..... :)

[mariedeblois]

I give permission for me to conflict with myself. (A brownie if you can find the precedent which does this automatically.)

I suppose I could start wearing a sword with my boyclothes...

[sapphire_cat]

How do I go about looking up info for my name? I googled it, and it came up with a name, but... I want something that's authentic. And, I don't know what else to look at besides Google, for what I'm going to be playing as. If you could help me, that'd be awesome.

[mariedeblois]

Ah! This is one place where Google doesn't necessarily help, because, well, anybody can say anything on the internet and it can be hard to tell if they actually know anything about names, medieval names, or anything like that. Honestly, most stuff on the internet about Gypsy names is fantasy bunk. You may want to look at Spanish or Hungarian names (what little I know about Gypsy names suggests that you check those two) and remember that, for general society, you would have probably had a "normal" name like those non-Gypsies would have.

That said, try these known reputable sites:

http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names.html
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/

You could also ask in sca_heralds.