A Rose By Any Other Name

When fashioning a story in my head the names of my characters are often the last piece to fall into place. Not only do you need to find a name that sounds right for the characteristics of a protagonist but also, in the case of historical fiction, one that sounds period suitable. There weren’t going to be too many Sir Brooklyn’s walking around in the Middle Ages.

So where do you turn when you are desperate for inspiration? A quick trawl through a gazillion web pages thrown up by a Google search is bound to happen at some stage in the research process. However, very handily for me, if you have access to some medieval documents or textbooks you can open a random page and see what crops up. This week I came across a gem of a document if you are in search for genuine medieval names.

In a manuscript (CCA-LitMs/D/12) kept in the Cathedral Archives of Canterbury there is compiled a list of names of the monks who entered Christ Church Priory between 1207 and 1534. The document is in Latin, but many of the Christian names are recognisable and are followed by a place name. (Willelmus de London = William from London).

These are just a few of my favourites selected from this list, and who knows, they might well have a walk-on part to play in a story in the near future.

Galfridus poterel

Iohnnes de Wyndchelesee

Dionisius de sancta Margaret

Reginaldus Charlys

Walterus de Castria

Hugo de sancto yuone

Alexander de Bedelyngwell’

Iacobus de Oxne

Nicholaus de Boywyke

Simon de Solis