No way! Sounding it out in my head, it sounds feminine, but I know how misleading that is. I hope it does prove to be. Even just one name would rock - how many Livonian female personae are going to be in the SCA anyway? It's okay if they have the same personal name, they'd likely not even be in the same kingdom. Right?
(And then Istvan talks 20 women into going Livonian just to pull our chains.)
It's very German, and also very clearly (gramatically) gendered as being a woman's name. So we're pretty safe. :)
Aleyt is a Low German form of Alice/Adelaide, and the -sche on the end of her byname is a Low German suffix used to feminise bynames (and in modern times to create feminine nouns). So, like a lot of names from this part of the world, it's the byname that hints that the name belonged to someone who wasn't necessarily German.
(Essentially, Livonians, Estonians and Latvians could have entirely German names and unless the records specified their ethnicity, we would never know in 2021 if the person with a German name in Livonia was from the German-speaking elite. But the German elites didn't use bynames with non-German or -Latin elements, only the indigenous inhabitants of Livonia did. I should probably mention that in the document... thank-you for the prodding!)
It has been re-tweaked. Please let me know if I have gotten your SCA name completely wrong (my memory is a bit rusty when it comes to dreamwidth handles!)
You got my name right. Or I could just be Hróðný Luddite Herald. (I saw that only because I get a kick out of my (heraldically naughty) title. I don't really mean it. Because then you'd have to use Ursula's title too.
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onlyembers
no subject
Date: 2021-12-22 09:35 am (UTC)(And then Istvan talks 20 women into going Livonian just to pull our chains.)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-22 10:05 am (UTC)Aleyt is a Low German form of Alice/Adelaide, and the -sche on the end of her byname is a Low German suffix used to feminise bynames (and in modern times to create feminine nouns). So, like a lot of names from this part of the world, it's the byname that hints that the name belonged to someone who wasn't necessarily German.
(Essentially, Livonians, Estonians and Latvians could have entirely German names and unless the records specified their ethnicity, we would never know in 2021 if the person with a German name in Livonia was from the German-speaking elite. But the German elites didn't use bynames with non-German or -Latin elements, only the indigenous inhabitants of Livonia did. I should probably mention that in the document... thank-you for the prodding!)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-22 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 03:09 pm (UTC)You have created a very useful document.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-12 10:21 am (UTC)I hope it's useful, if only for when people come across names in Estonian and Latvian sources and then go looking for more context.