INTRODUCTORY NOTE

by John Insley

Olof von Feilitzen conceived his Onomasticon as a strictly alphabetical work in which the name forms of ThLV had primacy. For a variety of reasons, I have deviated from this path, and have arranged the Onomasticon according to linguistic criteria in accordance with the system used in DLV. Feilitzen's notes and etymological discussions are fully incorporated into the Onomasticon, so that it is fundamentally his work organised according to the principles established in DLV and updated where necessary. Although Feilitzen's text is almost forty years old, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. I have indicated where I have disagreed with his findings, though the occasions on which this has been necessary are relatively insignificant. The bibliographical information has been brought up to date. It should be remarked that ThLV is different from the Durham Liber vitae in that the body of material is far smaller, and far less intractable. This is particularly true of the Old English and Scandinavian personal names, whereas the Continental Germanic material is more complex, especially with regard to Romance (Old French) and Middle Dutch/Low German influence. Feilitzen left a draft of an introduction. I have incorporated the appropriate parts of this draft in the introduction to the Onomasticon.

The following linguistic conventions have been used throughout this introduction and the linguistic commentary. Angle brackets (< >) have been used to indicate the orthographic unit, the grapheme. The unit of speech sound, the phoneme, is indicated by / /. Contextual variants (allophones) are indicated by square brackets ([ ]). Reconstructed forms are preceded by an asterisk. A single angle bracket (>) indicates that the name preceding it gives rise to the name following it, e.g., *Ansu-helma- > Ans(h)elm, while the reversed angle bracket (<) indicates derivation from a following earlier form, e.g., Ans(h)elm < *Ansu-helma-. Italics are used for linguistic forms and early spellings of onomastic material. The symbol (p) denotes that the name is only attested in place-names and doubtful cases are marked with a question mark. Non-italicised forms in brackets refer to the main entries in the Onomasticon. Small capitals have been used for moneyers’ names (following Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles usage). The modern forms of place-names, when these are being examined as linguistic units, are rendered in bold type, though small capitals are used for other toponymic units (names of hundreds, wapentakes, etc.).