Catalan is a Romance language spoken in northeastern Spain. At the time, it was spoken in a group of mostly independent counties that later would become part of the kingdom of Aragon. Catalan is most closely related to Provençal, but shares certain traits with both Spanish and French.
The author intentionally left most names in their documentary Latin forms, rather than translate them into the vernacular. I include both documentary forms and probable vernacular forms (the latter in parentheses). Vernacular forms are based both on the author's notes and on later documentary forms (written in the vernacular, most notably Marsá 1977).
The top men's names are:
| 1. Petrus (Pere) | 42 | 22% |
| 2. Guilelmus (Guilelm, Guillem) | 25 | 13% |
| 3. Arnau (Arnal, Arnau) | 19 | 10% |
| 4. Bernardus (Bernard, Bernat) | 17 | 9% |
| 5. Raimundus (Ramon) | 16 | 9% |
| 6. Berengarius (Berenguer) | 15 | 8% |
| 7. Poncius (Ponç) | 5 | 3% |
| 8. Johan | 4 | 2% |
| 9. Marti | 4 | 2% |
| 10. Carbonell | 3 | 2% |
Three names occur twice, Dominicus (Domingo), Ermengallus (Ermengol), and Vitalis (Vidal). A complete list of men's given names and a list of all the men's names as they appeared in the original documents are both available.
The vast majority of the people mentioned here have single element bynames. Just under 20% have no byname, but just a single given name. 76% have a single element byname. The remaining 5% have two-element bynames.
The most common kind of byname is a locative byname taking the form <de (placename)>. 28% of men had this sort of surname. Two kinds of patronymic surnames are found here: the first has the father's name in a possessive form (i.e. ending with <-i> or <-onis>), while the second uses the father's name in an unmodified form (some with Latin endings, others in vernacular form). 11% of men have patronymic bynames with a possessive form; 8% have patronymic bynames that are unmodified. A small percentage of these names may have second given names, but it was impossible to determine from the data. 6% of men had descriptive bynames, including occupational (rusticus 'peasant', burbo 'weaver') and descriptive (barbarossa 'red beard', bonus homo 'good man') bynames. The remainder of single element surnames could not be identified.
Two element bynames had (with one exception, which combined a patronymic with an occupational byname) a locative element as the second element. Only three people have what may be a double given name with a locative surname. While double given names cannot be ruled out at this date for Catalan, they were extremely rare.
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Adalyde de Perpiniano Aiculina d'Almenara Anglesa Beatriu Berenguera de Puigdàlber Ermessen Ermessen |
Geralla Gitarda Guilelma de Planes Maienca Maria Gitarda |
Marsá, Francisco
1977 Onomástica Barcelonesa del Sigo XIV. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona.
Layout, editting, and publishing Arval Benicoeur.