{{short description|Given name used repeatedly over several generations in a lineage or kin group}} A '''leading name''' (German ''Leitname'', plural ''Leitnamen'') is a given name that is used repeatedly over several generations in a lineage or broader kin group. Usually the entire name is used again and again, but sometimes a root of a name may be reused in several different forms.{{sfn|Wilson|1998|p=81}}{{sfn|Bouchard|1981|pp=504–08}}
A leading name could function as a sort of "moral property", where only those of the lineage had a right to use it and it was expected that nobody else would do so. Both the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties of Frankish kings drew from a repertoire of names that were rarely or never used by other families.{{sfn|Wilson|1998|p=81}}
Names could be passed on from the paternal or maternal side, often depending on which ancestors were more prominent.{{sfn|Wilson|1998|p=83}}
The idea of tracing lineages and proposing genealogies based on analysis of leading names is old. In 1043, when Abbot Poppo of Stavelot opposed the marriage of the Emperor Henry III to Agnes of Poitou on grounds of consanguinity, he traced the ancestry of Henry's mother: "the descent of the genealogy is achieved through Mathildas and Gerbergas, in such a way that Mathilda, the daughter of Gerberga (with the same name as her grandmother) called her daughter by her mother's name, and she left her own name as an inheritance to her granddaughter."{{sfn|Wilson|1998|p=84}} <!-- Count Teutbert came to the abbot to ask heaven for a son. The abbot promised that the count would have a son but claimed him for the Church, imposing on the chid in advance the monastic name of Benedict. When the child was born, therefore, the count took him secretly to Gorze where the abbot baptized and named him. At the end of the mother's confinement, she reminded the count, her husband, that it was time to christen the child and "to give him a name of his ancestors". When the count confessed that he had already had this done and that the child had been named Benedict on the orders of the abbot, she was upset and lamented "the great insult done thereby to our kindred".{{sfn|Wilson|1998|pp=81–82}}
Karl F. Werner, “Important Noble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne,” in The Medieval Nobility, ed. and trans. Timothy Reuter (New York: North Holland Publishing, 1979).-->
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== *{{cite journal |first=Constance B. |last=Bouchard |title=The Origins of the French Nobility: A Reassessment |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=86 |issue=3 |year=1981 |pages=501–32 |doi=10.2307/1860368|jstor=1860368 }} *{{cite book |first=Stephen |last=Wilson |authorlink=Stephen Wilson (historian)|title=The Means of Naming: A Social and Cultural History of Personal Naming in Western Europe |publisher=UCL Press |location=London |year=1998}}
Category:Onomastics