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15 Medieval Towns in Europe. These beautiful medieval towns have stood the test of time. Bruges, Belgium: one of Europe's most beautifully preserved cities. The medieval period was one of the most significant periods in the history of Europe. Gothic-themed buildings were constructed during this period. Unfortunately, the majority of the. History of Europe - History of Europe - The Middle Ages: The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400–1500 ce is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the period between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Gothic NamesShort Treatise on Anglo-Norman Personal NamesIt is a common misconception that medieval English naming practices centred on a relatively small number of personal names. While this is indeed true for the later medieval period, the Anglo-Norman period (which lasted from the Conquest on down to the beginning of the fourteenth century or so) provided a much larger variety of available and relatively common personal names. While certain of these were more popular than others, they did not dominate naming practices to the extent that names such as John, Thomas, Richard, and William for guys and Anne, Elizabeth, Cecily, and Margaret for girls did in later centuries. Furthermore, the popular names in the 13th century did not necessarily maintain their popularity in later years. The male names Roger and Simon and the female names Juliana and Matilda are good examples of this; while none of these names dropped completely out of use (though Matilda nearly did), they became far less frequent in later centuries after rivaling the Williams, Richards, Cecilys and Joans for popularity in the Anglo-Norman period.You will notice the popularity of saints' and Biblical names for both sexes.
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Names of great leaders or heroes (Constantine, Alexander, etc) seem to have also been used for males, though not as frequently as saints' names. Women's names pose a few problems. When the names were rendered into Latin in charters, often they were changed to make them fit the language. You will note that many of the femine names end in 'a', which is merely the most common nominative feminine ending. Whether these names all actually ended in 'a' is another matter, but it is clear that in many cases one may substitute 'e' for '(i)a' and still have just as valid a name: Felicia = Felice; Amicia = Amice (and later, Amy), etc.I will not say much about surnames except to note the two most common forms.
The first was used mostly by the upper classes and was originally a place-name describing where the family lived: de Quincy = 'of Quincy', de Montfort = 'of Montfort', etc. As families grew and migrated, many of these lost their place-meanings and simply evolved into family names. The other common type of surname was the occupational name or descriptive name: for instance: le Ferrier = 'the smith', 'Draper' = 'The draper',etc. Anglo-Norman occupational names evolved right alongside English ones; neither was completely dominant. Eventually these, too, lost their original meanings and became merely surnames. A look through a book of documents will give you a host of different possible surnames.The names given here are taken from four collections of legal documents from around England:. Cartulary of Blyth Priory, R.T.
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(London: HMSO, 1973) DA 670 N9B5. Feet of Fines for Essex, R.E.G. (Colchester: Wiles and Son, 1899) DA 670 E7A12. Feet of Fines for Somerset: Richard I-Edward I, E. (London: Harrison and Sons, 1892) DA 670 S49S5. Warwickshire Feet of Fines v. Stokes and F.C.
Wellstood, eds.
See also:The majority of Greek names are patronymic. There are also several names derived from professions ( Samaras, Σαμαράς = saddle maker, Papoutsis, Παπουτσής = shoe maker), area of (former) residence ( Kritikos, Κρητικός = from, Aivaliotis, Αϊβαλιώτης= from ), nicknames relating to physical or other characteristics ( Kontos, Κοντός = short, Mytaras, Μυταράς = large-nosed, Koufos, Κουφός = deaf) and more.The patronymic suffix varies between dialects; thus Giannidis, Giannakos, Giannatos, Giannopoulos, Giannelis, Giannioglou all mean 'son of Giannis.' RankSurnameTransliterationMeaning.ΣαμαράςSamarassaddle maker.ΠαπουτσήςPapoutsisshoe maker.ΚρητικόςKritikosfrom.ΑϊβαλιώτηςAivaliotisfrom.ΚοντόςKontosshort.ΜυταράςMytaraslarge-nosed.ΚουφόςKoufosdeafHungary 2,095,788 individuals (21% of the population) bear the most common 20 names, and 3,347,493 individuals (33.5%) bearing the top 100 names. See also: Portugal The 50 most frequent surnames in Portugal are listed below. A number of these surnames may be preceded by “of”/'from' ( de, d’) or “of the/from the” ( do, da, dos, das) as in de Sousa, da Costa, d’Oliveira. Those elements are not part of the surname and are not considered in an alphabetical order.OrderSurnameMeaningFrequency%Origin1woodland9.44%Latin silva2saints5.96%Latin3blacksmith5.25%Latin ferrarius4pear tree4.88%Latin pirus5olive tree3.71%Latin oliva6from the coast, toponym3.68%Latin costa7son of Rodrigo3.57%Germanic Roderich8son of Martim3.23%Latin Martinus9Jesus2.99%Latin Iesus. Main articles:, andMany of the surnames use the same root but different suffixes, or even different roots of the same meaning, depending on the part of Ukraine the person hails from.
RankSurnameMeaning12's3the (a member of a group of Ukrainian highlanders)4's5's6's7's8's9Oliynykoil maker10's1112the Polesian, a man from1314's15Moroz16's17's (from Lys) or 's (from Lysyi)18redhead's19Savka's (Savka is a form of or )20'sUnited Kingdom England RankSurnamePercentage11.2620.7530.5940.5650.3960.3970.3780.3490.0.0.0.0.0.27200.26Greater LondonThe following list is for.
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