[antir-heralds] Name Help: McCoy

[Ursula Georges]

Amanda Haugland wrote:
> Unto the Heralds of An Tir, Greetings!
> 
> I am a very new herald in the midst of my first name consultation.  I have
> managed to document the first two elements of my client's name (Gerald
> Rhys), but I am having a hard time documenting his last name: McCoy.  I
> found the name in Edward MacLysaght's _The Surnames of Ireland_ on p. 62,
> but this source does not mention when the name was used.  Could you kindly
> guide me toward further documentation of this name?  Do I *need* further
> documentation, or can I send it in as is?  Thank you in advance for your
> help!

So, you always need 2 things:

* Proof that each piece of the name was used before 1600 someplace that 
had contact with medieval Europe

* An argument that the pieces of the name go together.

Here you've got 3 elements in 3 languages: Gerald is English, Rhys is 
Welsh, and McCoy is closest to either Anglicized Irish Gaelic or a Scots 
version of Gaelic.

SCA precedent has lots of rulings on language combinations:

http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/precedents/CompiledNamePrecedents/Polylingual.html

And there's also a "table of weirdnesses":

http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/sca/weirdness_table.html

Why "weirdnesses"?  Names in our period were transformed to fit the 
language a person was speaking or writing.  Combining spellings from 
different cultures to indicate education or heritage is a modern 
American thing, not a medieval thing.  So putting together names from 
different cultures might be ruled either "no weirdness" (combine as much 
as you want!), "weirdness", or "not registrable".  A single weirdness is 
registrable though inauthentic; two weirdnesses make a name unregistrable.

Depending on how you read the table, Gerald + Rhys + a form of McCoy is 
going to be either 1 or 2 weirdnesses.  We may be able to put together 
an argument for a single weirdness, and have it squeak through.  But you 
might want to talk to your client about what he's going for: why three 
names?  What's his persona?

Ursula Georges.