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When the mundane middle name is a given, not a surname, it can be used as the SCA given name per Rule II.4. (Dyan of Caledonia, July, 1992, pg. 8)
There remains the question of whether a Hebrew name is in fact a "legal name" within the meaning of II.4. Not all religious names are necessarily legal names; I once had the dubious pleasure of meeting someone from a New Age commune known as Brother Sunshine. In this case, however, the Hebrew name is used in legal documents, including marriage contracts, divorce records, and the like (Michael Asheri, Living Jewish: the Lore and Law of Being a Practicing Jew, p.31). I think it qualifies as a "legal name". (Levia Rhys Llaw Wen, September, 1992, pp. 16-17)
It has long been one of the axioms of the Society's re-creation that our players' SCA names should differ from their mundane names. The purpose of the rule is to distance the SCA and mundane worlds, and it's considered almost as fundamental as the requirement for period garb at events. The rule is currently found in the Administrative Handbook, Protected Items --- I: Any name or armory used by the submitter outside the Society.
Until the current Rules, the ban on mundane names was narrowly defined: anything that changed the spelling and pronunciation was sufficient difference from the mundane name. "The minimum change (the one regarded as a loophole by liberals and conservatives alike) is probably the addition or removal of a single syllable (e.g. John Smith to John the Smith)." [BoE, 14 April 85, p.16] However, under the current Rules, the same standard of conflict was applied to the mundane name as to any other protected name. This is a much broader ban, and requires a greater change from the mundane name.
Given the fundamental reason for the mundane name ban, I believe that our current standard is too strict. The Rules say that "no item will be registered to a submitter if it is identical to an item used by the submitter ...outside the Society." (emphasis mine). This suggests that non-identity should suffice to distinguish the Society persona from the mundane. The situation isn't quite the same as for the other names we protect: the concept of "conflict" isn't apropos, there being no infringement involved, and in any case the submitter could always grant himself permission.
Henceforth, I shall apply the previous standard of non-identity: a significant change in spelling and pronunciation will clear a submitted name from the mundane name. In the present case, the addition of the preposition atte suffices to bring the name clear of the submitter's mundane name. (Kenrick atte Kyte, November, 1992, pg. 8)
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[Terrill ferch Mordeyrn] Terrill is documented only as a surname (v. Reaney DBS 350), not as a given name in period. It also happens to be the submitter's mundane middle name. Rule II.4 permits the submitter to use her mundane middle name as her SCA middle name; to use it as any other part of the SCA name requires evidence that the usage is appropriate. We have no evidence in this instance. (Terrill ferch Mordeyrn, January, 1993, pg. 26)
Jay is documented only as a noun and surname in period; as it's the client's mundane given name, it was submitted under the aegis of Rule II.4. Such submissions, while usually acceptable, can be returned if the name is "obtrusively modern". We find Jay to be obtrusively modern, by virtue of its sound: it sounds like an initial, as in J. P. Morgan, and thus post-period.
We might have considered this acceptable as a "bird name", akin to Robin, had we been shown a common pattern of usage that birds were used as given names in period. But we could think of no examples offhand, save Robin; and one can make a good case that the bird's name derived from the given name (a diminutive of Robert) rather than the reverse. Without period examples, Jay must be considered intrusively modern, and unacceptable even under the Legal Name Allowance. (Jay MacPhunn, June, 1993, pg. 23)
This submission raised the question of how much difference is needed between the SCA and mundane names. In the LoA&R of November 1992, I returned us to our previous standard of non-identity: "The minimum change (the one regarded as a loophole by liberals and conservatives alike) is probably the addition or deletion of a single syllable (e.g. John Smith to John the Smith)." [LoA&R of April 1985]. Any changes smaller than a single syllable may not be sufficient; they must be argued case by case.
In this case, the submitter's mundane name (Valerie La Rue) was too close to the name she submitted (Valerie Le Roux). The fact that the bynames had different derivations and spellings was irrelevant; their pronunciation was nearly identical. Even under our new relaxed standards, there was not enough separation between the mundane name and SCA persona. Fortunately (!), the submitted byname was also grammatically incorrect: it used the masculine form of the adjective. The feminine equivalent is la Rousse and this is sufficiently different from La Rue to be acceptable in this case. (Valerie la Rousse, September, 1993, pg. 16)
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