One of my more obscure hobbies (and yes, I realize how obscure that is) is researching the history of names. Specifically, names that are recorded in written documents from before 1600. The SCA has its own College of Heralds that registers names and devices, and I am one of them. A herald, that is, not a name or a device. Devices are fun, but names are the Best Ever. For example, did you know that there was a man named Daczibogius enrolled in the University of Kraków in the 15th century?
The tricky part of creating an appropriate name is that it has to be something a medieval person could plausibly have been named, down to the original spelling. This means trawling through original documents to compile lists of such names, including dates and places of origin. Unsurprisingly, most people don't really get into it, although I think it's a tremendous amount of fun. To save them the effort, those of us who like names write summary articles that are then sorted by place of origin.
Mistress P set me the task of creating an index of all the articles I've written. And since I just finished a new one today, it seemed like the perfect time to get one with that. Consequently, you'll see there is a new widget in my sidebar. There are only five so far, but I'm working on several more...
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