About male anglo-saxon names
How male anglo-saxon names are built
A male draw pulls from an 881-entry forename bank and a female draw from a 428-entry bank, then templates add a byname slot. Patterns include a bare name, an epithet (the name plus "the" and an occupation word), a plain occupational surname (the same trade word attached without the article), and a place-of-origin form where a stem and a tail from two fragment banks join into one coined locative after "of".
Deorwulf the Falconer
Deorwulf + Falconer
forename plus an epithet from the byname bank
Hereswitha Skinner
Hereswitha + Skinner
female forename with the trade word attached bare, no article
Osbeald of Tillybaan
Osbeald + Tilly + baan
forename plus a two-part place glued from a stem and a tail
Naming notes
The forename banks are the large slots, so the given name varies far more than the byname pool. The byname templates wire three shapes onto a name: an occupational epithet from a 208-entry bank set after "the", the same trade word attached bare with no article, and a two-part place built by gluing a stem (189 entries) to a tail (83). The bare-name pattern returns the forename alone. Use the "the"-epithet form for a chronicle register and the bare name for casual reference.
Questions about male anglo-saxon names
- Why do some results add 'the Falconer' or a bare trade word?
- Those are byname templates: one appends an occupational epithet after 'the', one attaches the trade word bare, as in Acca Miller, and one builds a place of origin by gluing a stem to a tail. A bare-name pattern returns the forename alone.
- Where do the place-of-origin names come from?
- The 'of' pattern joins two fragment banks, a 189-entry stem and an 83-entry tail, into a single coined locative such as Tilly plus baan giving Tillybaan.
- How large are the forename banks?
- The male forename bank holds 881 entries and the female bank 428, so the forename carries most of the variation against the smaller byname slots.