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Hello,
I use the name Yasmeena in a reenactment group who recreates life pre 17th century. We have a registery for our names, etc. I've been trying to find some documentation for the use of my name and have not been lucky. It is obvious to me that a girl would be named after a flower, but to our heralds, it is not enough to assume. Please help.
Willa Rose, sometimes as Yasmeena
I use the name Yasmeena in a reenactment group who recreates life pre 17th century. We have a registery for our names, etc. I've been trying to find some documentation for the use of my name and have not been lucky. It is obvious to me that a girl would be named after a flower, but to our heralds, it is not enough to assume. Please help.
Willa Rose, sometimes as Yasmeena
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Replies
I agree with Anneza
There are some reasons why it would be hard, if not impossible, to find Yasmeena as a name in pre-17th century Western Culture. First, jasmine is not native to Europe. It is believed to originally come from India. According to www.augustflorist.com, jasmine wasn't even introduced to England 1548, or halfway through the 16th century. And even then it would be introduced to the aristocracy, and it would most likely be years before the flower became common enough & affordable enough that the average citizen would be familiar with it. So to the common man jasmine would indeed seem exotic. Plus, the word jasmine is of Arabic origin, so who knows how foreign Jasmine or Yasmeena would have sounded to a peasant who couldn't even read or write his own language.
There are some reasons why it would be hard, if not impossible, to find Yasmeena as a name in pre-17th century Western Culture. First, jasmine is not native to Europe. It is believed to originally come from India. According to www.augustflorist.com, jasmine wasn't even introduced to England 1548, or halfway through the 16th century. And even then it would be introduced to the aristocracy, and it would most likely be years before the flower became common enough & affordable enough that the average citizen would be familiar with it. So to the common man jasmine would indeed seem exotic. Plus, the word jasmine is of Arabic origin, so who knows how foreign Jasmine or Yasmeena would have sounded to a peasant who couldn't even read or write his own language.
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They wouldn't of named girl's after flowers. People were named Biblical names, after saints, or variations of saints/biblical names. Many common Briton, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Gaelic etc names did prevail through cultures of the time, but you will find most of those names, especially north eastern european names to be descriptive of where the person lived or looked like
Ashley - From a surname which was originally derived from a place name which meant "ash tree clearing" in Old English.
Campbell - From a Scottish surname meaning "crooked mouth" from Gaelic cam "crooked" and béul "mouth". The Campbells were one of the great Highland clans.
I doubt you will find to many people in the British area name Jasmine now a days, nvm Yasmeena... Good Christians didn't tend to name their children in the language of 'heathens'.
~SD
Ashley - From a surname which was originally derived from a place name which meant "ash tree clearing" in Old English.
Campbell - From a Scottish surname meaning "crooked mouth" from Gaelic cam "crooked" and béul "mouth". The Campbells were one of the great Highland clans.
I doubt you will find to many people in the British area name Jasmine now a days, nvm Yasmeena... Good Christians didn't tend to name their children in the language of 'heathens'.
~SD
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Just remember that it is wildly unlikely for pre-17th century Western parents to give their daughter a non-Christian (OK, non-biblical, non-saint's) name. Where you hear a pretty name and think of a fragrant flower, they would have heard the forces of heathen darkness! As for finding a priest who'd be willing to christen a child with a name like that - try finding a church minister in a Bible Belt community today who'd willingly name a child, say, Osama ...
Unless, of course, your pre-17th century community is in fact an Islamic one - is it?
Unless, of course, your pre-17th century community is in fact an Islamic one - is it?
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