Picking an ancient Celtic name...

[Beth M]

No problem, Chris; it's what this forum is about. Glad you found the info useful.

Beth

[M_McClure]

I enjoy working on the Gallic/Gaulish languages, and have 5 books on the topic:

Dictionnaire de Gaulois by Patrick Beaufort
Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise by Xavire Delamarre
Dictionnaire Francais-Gauloise by Jean-Paul Savignac
Gaulish Personal Names by Ellis Evans.
La Langue Gailoise by P.Y. Lambert

If someone needs any info, names, words, morphology, etc... from any of these, please let me know or PM me

[Siani O.]

Not sure it's worth much but I was perusing some stuff from the Academy of St. Gabriel; someone wanted a Celtic name for a woman but no further details. The response to them gave 'daughter of' as inigena (een-gen), from an inscription in Britain, and then an example of a name whose origin is unknown; Auitoriga..alongside which was Auitorix.

Speculation, and it is entirely speculation, is that this *might* have been a common way to take male names ending in '-rix' and make them feminine by changing that to '-riga'. So Caturix (Battle King if memory serves) could be Caturiga (Battle Queen). So goes the thought line.

However, there is one inscription that says the name 'Tancorix' is in fact feminine...at least in this case...as the inscription reads 'Tancorix inigena Durotriges' (Tancorix daughter of the Durotriges) if memory serves. Which would seem to contradict the replacement of '-rix' with '-riga' to feminize it. Quite possibly they (the Britons/Celts) may not have been as hung up on naming conventions as we are or like to think they may have been. No way to know for certain really. Exceptions to the rules may have been common.

This page: http://heatherrosejones.com/names/welsh ... .html#app2 gives a number of British names mentioned in Roman inscriptions. Unfortunately they cover up to the 4th century C.E. For ideas if nothing else.

Either way sounds plausible to me and seems to fit pretty well. I wish we knew the meanings of more of the names. Cardixa. 'Car' means 'cart'..a Gaulish word, or is it actually 'Card'...'-dixa' seems odd...a mutation of some sort, or is it 'ixa'? Hard to say. I have no idea. LOL 'Cartimandua' meant 'Sleek Pony' or similar.

Siani

[Beth M]

Not sure it's worth much but I was perusing some stuff from the Academy of St. Gabriel; someone wanted a Celtic name for a woman but no further details. The response to them gave 'daughter of' as inigena (een-gen), from an inscription in Britain, and then an example of a name whose origin is unknown; Auitoriga..alongside which was Auitorix.

Worth remembering, though, that 'inigena' is extremely rare, and was recorded in the ogam inscription only; the 'British' (i.e. Latin) inscription used 'filia'. (Not to say that a form of the word wasn't used in some way in non-Latin speaking communities in Britain, of course.) The names recorded were Avitoria and Avittoriges in the British/Latin and Irish inscriptions respectively. Seems the jury's out on just how to reconstruct the name, with some in favour of the '-riga' ending and others using '-rix'.

Speculation, and it is entirely speculation, is that this *might* have been a common way to take male names ending in '-rix' and make them feminine by changing that to '-riga'. So Caturix (Battle King if memory serves) could be Caturiga (Battle Queen). So goes the thought line.

I've tended to go with the '-riga' ending myself (it looks good! ), but you make a good point with Tancorix. Maybe the Britons were happy to cross over in their naming (a bit like with the name Hillary today ) - although obviously the woman from Carlisle wanted to make it clear on her inscription, at least, what gender she was. Of course, maybe there was something else going on that we can't know about.

the inscription reads 'Tancorix inigena Durotriges' (Tancorix daughter of the Durotriges) if memory serves.

Do you have any more info about this inscription? The only Tancorix I was aware of was the one from Carlisle, and this doesn't sound like her.

Exceptions to the rules may have been common.

Rules, after all, are made to be broken...

[Siani O.]

I'll see if I can dig the references up. I've not delved into those works in some time and they are likely in storage, but curiosity once again aroused, I will see what I can find. :)

I too prefer the '-riga' ending; it does sound good. LOL I've been thinking using a name with that ending to replace Cardixa..since I can't figure out where in the world I found that one. Age ya know. ;)

Siani

[Beth M]

Hi Siani,

I definitely prefer the '-riga' ending...in fact, I used Caturiga as my login name for RAT when I signed up a while back... (I still don't know how I ended up on a forum about Romans. )

I'll see if I can dig the references up. I've not delved into those works in some time and they are likely in storage, but curiosity once again aroused, I will see what I can find. :)

Thanks; I'd be really interested to know what you find. :)

Beth

[Siani O.]

LOL I'm on RAT too...as Rutilia. :) A fair few of us are on both I think.

Serendipity; I had no idea you were using the name 'Caturiga'...I pulled that one from off the top of my head as an example. LOL

I'll probably be able to get in there next week; I need to ferret out some of my other research materials anyway.

Siani