Feminine Names from Aosta, 1337 and 1351

by Sara L. Uckelman
known in the SCA as Aryanhwy merch Catmael

© 2006 Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 11Jul06

The following names are taken from records of audiences with the Counts and Dukes of Savoy. The records are from Aosta, on the modern-day border between France and Italy. The records are all in Latin, and date from 1337 and 1351. Unfortunately, the records contain few feminine names. I have extracted the feminine names to make this article, and ordered them alphabetically.

Aosta is right on the border of modern day Italy and France. The valley came under the control of the House of Savoy in 1034, and the House of Savoy used French as its official language. However, the residents of Aosta in general continued to speak their native dialect, which was Valdoten. Valdoten is a Franco-Provencal dialect; these dialects are closely related to French and Occitan but form a distinct family. As noted, all of the names here are recorded in Latin. These Latin spellings of names are appropriate for written contexts, or contexts where Latin is spoken, but they may not closely represent the spoken form of the name. We can at best speculate on what possible vernacular forms of these names are.

Source

Lange, Augusta, Le udienze dei conti e duchi di Savoia nella Valle d'Aosta, 1337 (Paris; Torino: Picard [etc.], 1956)

The original article can be found at: http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/aostafem.html