[antir-heralds] Name Check - Offa Wulfsen

[John Doty]

And forth I crawl from Œneath a long-unturn¹d rock....

Male client is wishing the name Offa Wulfsen. My brief research is limited
to the obvious online resources.

Offa as a male given name can be attributed to a prominent king of Mercia
(reigned from 757 to 796, thanks Google). While there are no Offas
registered in the Society (online Armorial check using the string ^Offa),
there is no indication nor Laurel Precedents implying that the name was
unique. We do have Arthurs and Alfreds, so prominent early Anglo kings
aren¹t problematic by default.

Wulfsen might be properly spelled differently? Again, searching the Armorial
using the string Wulfs[oe]n yields one result with the surname, though the
compounding -wulf with other Saxon-ish elements Aethel- Raed- Os- and then
structured to a patrynomic also occur. All spell with ­son. Multiple
instances (17) of ŒWulf¹ as a given name have registered in the SCA, most
recently in 2002. One registered given name Wulf uses a patrynomic surname
with the ­sen construction. I guess an argument could be made that the ­sen
is a Danish variant and the Danes were the Scandiwhovians most associated
with Mercia and the rest of the various kingdoms on Great Britain (hello,
Danelaw), so the spelling might be supported.

Client does wish to be considered ŒDane¹ and opines that the given name,
while seemingly Saxon, would be easily found attached to a Dane in the
melting pot that was central Britain in the 8th-10th C. I am looking for
support in documenting both elements and supporting spelling as is, though
will encourage corrections, should they be appropriate.

Client was an AoA recipient this weekend and directed to Œregistering
suitable and unique arms¹ and the name is part of that process, eh?

Proposed device forthcoming separately.

Sveyn