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Atenveldt Submissions (excerpted from the S.C.A. College of Arms' Letters of Acceptance and Return)

The following submissions were registered by the S.C.A. College of Arms, September 2008:

Fiona inghean Mheg Uidhir. Name (see RETURNS for device).

Submitted as Fiona Mag Uidhir, this used a Gaelic feminine given name with a Gaelic masculine byname. Because bynames were used literally in Gaelic, they must agree in gender with the given name; this means that the byname needs to be in the feminine form to be registered with a feminine given name. The appropriate feminine form of Mag Uidhir is inghean Mheg Uidhir or inghean Mhég Uidhir. We have changed the name to Fiona inghean Mheg Uidhir in order to register it.

The given name Fiona is an SCA-compatible Gaelic name; its use is one step from period practice. As ruled on the May 2008 Cover Letter, as of the May 2009 decision meeting we will no longer consider any name element to be SCA-compatible.

Hans Rüpprecht. Device. Sable, on a pile issuant from sinister chief argent three grenades in bend sinister bendwise sinister gules.

Steffen von der Grün. Name and device. Or, a gurges vert and on a chief gules three arrows bendwise sinister Or.

Zafira bint Zahira. Name and device. Gules estencelly Or, a rabbit's massacre argent within a bordure lozengy argent and sable.

Submitted as Zafira al-Zahira, the byname al-Zahira was documented from the January 2003 LoAR:  The submitted form of the byname al-Zahir is a masculine form. Arabic descriptive bynames must match the gender of the given name. As the name Scheherazade is feminine, we have changed the byname to the feminine form al-Zahira in order to register this name. [Scheherazade al-Zahira, East-A]

However, the source used for al-Zahir in this registration, Da'ud ibn Auda, "Period Arabic Names and Naming Practices", has since been revised and updated and the byname al-Zahir has been removed. None of the commenters were able to provide any independent support for either al-Zahir or al-Zahira. Lacking evidence that either the masculine or the feminine form is a plausible Arabic byname, they are both not registerable. Siren notes that 'Ana Labarta, in La Onomástica de los Moriscos Valencianos, is at least willing to contemplate that Zahira (with the first 'a' long) was used as a given name by Moriscos in late period Valencia, but the form of the name is only written in Romance, making its identification unsure.'  We are willing to give the submitter the benefit of the doubt, and have changed the name to Zafira bint Zahira in order to register it. The registration of Umm al-Ghazala Jami'a bint Shirin al-Armaniyya (March 2006) gives a number of examples of matronymic bynames in Arabic, provided by Palimpsest. At that time, the precedent from April 1994 forbidding matronymics was not explicitly overturned. We hereby do so.

The submitted armory includes a pair of rabbit ears, set at a slight angle to each other, and conjoined by a small bit of the scalp of the unfortunate beast. Evidence was provided that this motif was used in period heraldry, but we must be able to blazon it. The only term that comes to mind for this arrangement that includes the piece of scalp is 'massacre', by analogy to a stag's massacre, and we are so blazoning this motif.  To be blazoned as a massacre, other massacres need to be composed of an identifiable element uniquely associated with an animal's scalp or the top of the skull, such as stag's horns or rabbit ears. Charges which do not meet this requirement, such as generic cat's or dog's ears conjoined to part of a scalp or skull, will not be registered unless they are uniquely identifiable.

The following have been returned by the College of Arms for further work, September 2008:

Fiona inghean Mheg Uidhir. Device. Or, on a bend vert between a cow statant gules and a sheaf of arrows inverted sable three annulets Or.

With three types of charges on the field, this design cannot be considered 'simple armory' for purposes of RfS X.4.j.ii. Therefore, it is a conflict with the device of Edolina del Fylde, Or, on a bend vert three acorns palewise Or, with a single CD for addition of the secondary charges and nothing for the change to only the type of the tertiary charges.

Uilliam mac Eoin. Name.

This is returned for conflict with William MacKeown and with William MacIan. In both cases, while the bynames are significantly different in appearance, the only difference in sound is a slight change in the vowel sound. The change in pronunciation of a single vowel is not a significant difference in sound:

[B]y long-standing precedent, the change of a single vowel is not a sufficient difference between two names [Darchester, Shire of, 04/2003 LoAR, R-Caid].
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