basic principles -- need a citation

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Gjest

basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Gjest » 22 jan 2007 18:36:17

I need to cite an authority for a principle: namely, that the degree of
popularity of a name must be taken into account before proposing an
identification between two people with the same name.

Yes, of course, it's obvious and intuitive that if a name is popular,
you shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries have
the same name -- unless you have established that the name is rare.
Nonetheless, it is not that uncommon for medievalists to skip the step
of establishing how popular the name is, and jump straight to the
identification on circumstantial evidence. I'm looking for a statement
by an authority or a standard textbook which affirms the necessity for
testing the popularity first -- even though this is to state the
obvious.

Does anyone know of a place where this obvious step is stated in print?

Peter Stewart

Re: basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 23 jan 2007 01:50:47

geraldrm@earthlink.net wrote:
I need to cite an authority for a principle: namely, that the degree of
popularity of a name must be taken into account before proposing an
identification between two people with the same name.

Yes, of course, it's obvious and intuitive that if a name is popular,
you shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries have
the same name -- unless you have established that the name is rare.
Nonetheless, it is not that uncommon for medievalists to skip the step
of establishing how popular the name is, and jump straight to the
identification on circumstantial evidence. I'm looking for a statement
by an authority or a standard textbook which affirms the necessity for
testing the popularity first -- even though this is to state the
obvious.

Does anyone know of a place where this obvious step is stated in print?

I don't believe there is such a principle to state - if a name is rare,
you still shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries
have the same name.

The frequency vs uncommonness of any particular name in surviving
documentary sources may be a matter of record in some cases in a few
places, but unless there is only a single occurrence (with no scope for
confusion) that can't tell us whether or not there could have been two
or more individuals with the same unusual name.

In other words, your idea is basically a matter of practicality and not
principle. "Unusual is not the same as unique" may be a principle,
whereas "rare in statistical relation to common" is just a matter of
degree, and observation if the evidence allows.

Jumping to conclusions is a mistake, or at least a hazardous
enterprise, no matter what the context. If the evidence is sufficent to
the conclusion, no jumping ought to be required.

Peter Stewart

Gjest

Re: basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Gjest » 23 jan 2007 14:39:35

In many cases medievalists don't have the evidence sufficient to make
an identification with certainty, leaving the identification a matter
of relative probability. Clearly the level of probability must vary
inversely with the number of namesakes alive at the appropriate point
in time.

Peter Stewart wrote:
Yes, of course, it's obvious and intuitive that if a name is popular,
you shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries have
the same name -- unless you have established that the name is rare.
Nonetheless, it is not that uncommon for medievalists to skip the step
of establishing how popular the name is, and jump straight to the
identification on circumstantial evidence. I'm looking for a statement
by an authority or a standard textbook which affirms the necessity for
testing the popularity first -- even though this is to state the
obvious.

I don't believe there is such a principle to state - if a name is rare,
you still shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries
have the same name.

The frequency vs uncommonness of any particular name in surviving
documentary sources may be a matter of record in some cases in a few
places, but unless there is only a single occurrence (with no scope for
confusion) that can't tell us whether or not there could have been two
or more individuals with the same unusual name.

In other words, your idea is basically a matter of practicality and not
principle. "Unusual is not the same as unique" may be a principle,
whereas "rare in statistical relation to common" is just a matter of
degree, and observation if the evidence allows.

Jumping to conclusions is a mistake, or at least a hazardous
enterprise, no matter what the context. If the evidence is sufficent to
the conclusion, no jumping ought to be required.

Peter Stewart

Re: basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 24 jan 2007 00:15:16

geraldrm@earthlink.net wrote:
In many cases medievalists don't have the evidence sufficient to make
an identification with certainty, leaving the identification a matter
of relative probability. Clearly the level of probability must vary
inversely with the number of namesakes alive at the appropriate point
in time.

Probability and principle are not the same thing either. How do you
establish the number of namesakes alive at any time without identifying
each occurrence first? And once you have done that satisfactorily,
there is no gap left to jump across to a conclusion about one of them:
on the other hand, if you don't have enough evidence to do this, there
must be a gap no matter how rare or common the name in question.

If there were to be a firm, elaborated principle about this, it would
surely need to specify a cut-off point for the statistical frequencies
above and below which different approaches could apply, maybe different
for each population, time, place and presumed naming practice.

I suggest you read some of the studies that touch on the distribution
and frequency of names and analysis of transmission customs, for
example:

_Personal Names Studies in Medieval Europe: Social Identity and
Familial Structures_, edited by George T Beech, Monique Bourin & Pascal
Chareille, Studies in Medieval Culture XLIII (Kalamazoo, MI, 2002)

_Nomen et gens: Zur historischen Aussagekraft frühmittelalterlicher
Personnamen_, edited by Dieter Geuenich, Wolfgang Haubrichs & Jörg
Jarnut, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen
Altertumskunde 16 (Berlin & New York, 1997)

Hans-Werner Goetz, Nomen feminile: Namen und Namengebung der Frauen im
frühen Mittelalter, _Francia_ 23/1 (1996)

Ludwig Holzfurtner, Untersuchungen zur Namensgebung im frühen
Mittelalter nach den bayerischen Quellen des achten und neunten
Jahrhunderts, _Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte_ 45 (1982)

Louis Perouas et al, _Léonard, Marie, Jean et les autres: les prénoms
en Limousin depuis un millénaire_ (Paris, 1984)

George T Beech, Les noms de personne poitevins du 9e au 12e siècle,
_Revue internationale d'onomastique_ 26 (1974)

James C Holt, _What's in a Name? Family Nomenclature and the Norman
Conquest_, The Stenton Lecture 1981 (Reading, 1982)

David A Postles, The Baptismal Name in Thirteenth-Century England:
Processes and Patterns, _Medieval Prosopography_ 13 (1992)

DJ Steel, The Descent of Christian Names, _Genealogists' Magazine_ 14
(1962)

Constance Bouchard, Patterns of Women's Names in Royal Lineages,
Ninth-Eleventh Centuries, _Medieval Prosopography_ 9/1 (1988); The
Migration of Women's Names in the Upper Nobility, Ninth-Twelfth
Centuries, _Medieval Prosopography_ 9/2 (1988)

Cecily Clark, Women's Names in Post-Conquest England: Observations
and Speculations, _Speculum_ 53 (1978)

and especially the series _Genèse médiévale de l'anthroponymie
moderne_

Peter Stewart

Peter Stewart

Re: basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 24 jan 2007 00:16:00

geraldrm@earthlink.net wrote:
In many cases medievalists don't have the evidence sufficient to make
an identification with certainty, leaving the identification a matter
of relative probability. Clearly the level of probability must vary
inversely with the number of namesakes alive at the appropriate point
in time.

Probability and principle are not the same thing either. How do you
establish the number of namesakes alive at any time without identifying
each occurrence first? And once you have done that satisfactorily,
there is no gap left to jump across to a conclusion about one of them:
on the other hand, if you don't have enough evidence to do this, there
must be a gap no matter how rare or common the name in question.

If there were to be a firm, elaborated principle about this, it would
surely need to specify a cut-off point for the statistical frequencies
above and below which different approaches could apply, maybe different
for each population, time, place and presumed naming practice.

I suggest you read some of the studies that touch on the distribution
and frequency of names and analysis of transmission customs, for
example:

_Personal Names Studies in Medieval Europe: Social Identity and
Familial Structures_, edited by George T Beech, Monique Bourin & Pascal
Chareille, Studies in Medieval Culture XLIII (Kalamazoo, MI, 2002)

_Nomen et gens: Zur historischen Aussagekraft frühmittelalterlicher
Personnamen_, edited by Dieter Geuenich, Wolfgang Haubrichs & Jörg
Jarnut, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen
Altertumskunde 16 (Berlin & New York, 1997)

Hans-Werner Goetz, Nomen feminile: Namen und Namengebung der Frauen im
frühen Mittelalter, _Francia_ 23/1 (1996)

Ludwig Holzfurtner, Untersuchungen zur Namensgebung im frühen
Mittelalter nach den bayerischen Quellen des achten und neunten
Jahrhunderts, _Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte_ 45 (1982)

Louis Perouas et al, _Léonard, Marie, Jean et les autres: les prénoms
en Limousin depuis un millénaire_ (Paris, 1984)

George T Beech, Les noms de personne poitevins du 9e au 12e siècle,
_Revue internationale d'onomastique_ 26 (1974)

James C Holt, _What's in a Name? Family Nomenclature and the Norman
Conquest_, The Stenton Lecture 1981 (Reading, 1982)

David A Postles, The Baptismal Name in Thirteenth-Century England:
Processes and Patterns, _Medieval Prosopography_ 13 (1992)

DJ Steel, The Descent of Christian Names, _Genealogists' Magazine_ 14
(1962)

Constance Bouchard, Patterns of Women's Names in Royal Lineages,
Ninth-Eleventh Centuries, _Medieval Prosopography_ 9/1 (1988); The
Migration of Women's Names in the Upper Nobility, Ninth-Twelfth
Centuries, _Medieval Prosopography_ 9/2 (1988)

Cecily Clark, Women's Names in Post-Conquest England: Observations
and Speculations, _Speculum_ 53 (1978)

and especially the series _Genèse médiévale de l'anthroponymie
moderne_

Peter Stewart

Gordon Johnson

Re: basic principles -- need a citation

Legg inn av Gordon Johnson » 25 jan 2007 01:42:47

geraldrm@earthlink.net wrote:
I need to cite an authority for a principle: namely, that the degree of
popularity of a name must be taken into account before proposing an
identification between two people with the same name.

Yes, of course, it's obvious and intuitive that if a name is popular,
you shouldn't jump to conclusions just because two contemporaries have
the same name -- unless you have established that the name is rare.
Nonetheless, it is not that uncommon for medievalists to skip the step
of establishing how popular the name is, and jump straight to the
identification on circumstantial evidence. I'm looking for a statement
by an authority or a standard textbook which affirms the necessity for
testing the popularity first -- even though this is to state the
obvious.

Does anyone know of a place where this obvious step is stated in print?

*** This is not obvious at all. A name may be common in one location and

rare in another; and the frequency of use of a particular name will vary
over time.
You thus, in each case, have to establish whether two people with the
same name are in the right places at the right time, to enhance the
probability of being the one person. Of course you also take into
consideration other facts such as titles/occupation, land ownership, and
references to other relatives.
But beware of making ANY assumptions without proof. I found in one
parish two couples, both with exactly the same names, having children in
an overlapping period. It was only the occurrence of two children close
together in the one year that made me investigate more deeply. The same
applies in the medieval period when there was a more limited number of
names in use.
Gordon.

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