[antir-heralds] Name Check - Offa Wulfsen

[Britt]

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

Offa is found in Anglo-Saxon Names by Ælfwyn æt Gyrwum at
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/aelfwyn/bede.html

Keep that URL: http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/   It's the library for
SCA heralds who don't have a library (and for many who do).

Wulfsson might be trickier.  Wulf- seems to be a prototheme, the first
half of an Anglo Saxon personal name (I'm finding many female names
that are Wulf-something) but might not be a name on its own.  Ulfr is
a Norse personal name, and the patronimic form is Ulfsson.  So that's
a possibility.

<the following paragraph may be used as documentation, in its entirety>
Ulfr is in 'The Old Norse Name' by Geirr Bassi Haraldsson, which is
one of the no-photocopy (Appendix H of the Administrative Handbook -
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/regs.html) sources.  The
construction of the patronymic byname showing that names ending in -r
drop the r and add -sson is on page 17 of the booklet.


So Offa was recorded in 731 and Wulfson is unlikely bul Ulfsson is
Viking-era which means contemporary enough to Offa to be acceptable.
In the compiled names precedents at
http://heraldry.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/precedents is a table of
languages which are combinable, combinable with a step from period
practice, and not combinable at all.  Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse are
combinable with one step from period practice (weirdness), so if the
dates between Offa and Ulfsson are within 300 years (they should be)
the name is fine.

- Teceangl