5000th individual citation for Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources

http://dmnes.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/5000th-citation/

The team of DMNES has just completed the final review for the 5000th individual citation to go into the Dictionary (a citation of Theoderici, a Latin genitive of Theodoric — a name which many people might be surprised was as enduringly popular as it was — from a German record from 1214). Here is a nifty little chart that shows the breakdown of citations per country:

Citations per country

And another with citations per language:

Citations per language

The disparities in the first chart reflect the sources from which the editorial team has chosen to work with: the Czech Republic is grossly overrepresented due to the existence of a fascinating collection of Latin charters from the mid 14th C full of names, many of which show strong influence of the vernacular in their spellings. Since transcription from, say, English parish registers can sometimes be a bit boring (yes, Virginia, every fifth man really was named John in 16th C England…), collections of charters like this one that have unusual and sometimes unique names of course are going to receive the benefit of a disproportionately large amount of attention.

Reaching the 5000th citation represents an increase of nearly 29% since they last took stock, just over two weeks ago. Such rapid progress even in the midst of other time-consuming matters is exciting and inspiring, and we look forward to seeing what the coming months will bring!