By Iago ab Adam (Michael Case), © 2022 Michael Case; all rights reserved

last updated 15May2022

Introduction

This is a collection of names from baptism records from the commune of Bréhan-Loudéac (a FamilySearch account is required to view the records) in the department of Morbihan, in south-eastern Brittany. The record contains baptisms from 1536 to 1668, but around 1552 the practice of recording the mother’s name fell out of favour. This affected the gender balance of the data, and also made it harder to identify individuals, so I’ve only used the segment from 1536 to 1552 (images 8 to 26).

Though the record also includes the names of godparents, at this time I’ve only analyzed the names of the child being baptized and their parents – I may add the godparent data in a later update.

For the purposes of calculating the number of people with a name I’ve made my best effort at identifying individuals who are in multiple entries and only counting them once; the 1316 names transcribed represent about 946 individuals. For spelling variations all instances of a name were considered – the total number of instances for each spelling is provided ‘Spelling Frequency’.

The names are from my own transcription of the source. I’m reasonably confident of the majority of my transcriptions, particularly of the given names; the fact that so many people were recorded more than once allowed me to cross-reference many unclear names. Any names where there was some doubt (usually in interpreting repeated minims) I’ve marked with a (?). U and V are interchangeable in the hand used – when transcribing I’ve used whichever one makes the most sense to me. I’ve added spaces and apostrophes when transcribing surnames that use prepositions and articles for clarity – there are no apostrophes in the original and the spacing is haphazard at best.

As the document is in Latin the provided vernaculars for given names are hypothetical, and are based on the forms found in other articles on Breton and French names of the period.

Surnames don’t appear to have been Latinized. The origins of the surnames are my best guesses. Surnames are inherited, so, for example, “Patronymic” indicates that it’s of patronymic origin, not a literal patronymic.

To show the changing name patterns between the two generations represented, the given name data has been divided into 4 parts by gender and generation. Surnames are sorted by both frequency and alphabetically.

References

  • Buron, Gildas. “Le peuplement et la population du pays guérandais à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début des temps modernes: l’apport de l’onomastique.” Onomastique et Histoire, Onomastique Littéraire. Ed. Pierre-Henri Billy and Jacques Chaurand. Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1998. https://www.persee.fr/doc/acsfo_0000-0000_1998_act_8_1_1026.
  • Cotgrave, Randle. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London, 1611, http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/.
  • Jones, Heather Rose. “Given Names from Brittany, 1384-1600.” Medieval Names Archive, 2001, https://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/latebreton/.
  • Le Borgne, Guy. Armorial breton. Rennes, 1667, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k376668w.
  • Potier de Courcy, Pol. Nobiliare et Armorial de Bretagne. Rennes, 1890, https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Livre:Potier_de_Courcy_-_Nobiliaire_et_armorial_de_Bretagne,_1890,_tome_1.djvu.
  • “Registres paroissiaux et d’état civil, Morbihan, France, 1536-1894,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/film/008521588?cc=3656670 : 19 February 2020), Archives départementales du Morbihan (Departmental Archives of Morbihan), Vannes.
  • Uckelman, Sara L. “Breton Names from the Late 13th Century.”, 2013, https://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/late13thcbreton.html.
  • Uckelman, Sara L., editor-in-chief. Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources. 2021, https://dmnes.org/.
  • Uckelman, Sara L. “15th C Breton Names.”, 2013, https://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/french/breton15thc.html.