Message: "Feminine Equivalent of 'Fitz'"

Feminine Equivalent of 'Fitz'

by Xuxu (guest)

8/2/2010, 3:49 AM

Is there an historical feminine counterpart to Anglo-Norman 'Fitz' (as in surnames such as Fitzgerald, Fitzroy, et al.)? My Googling hasn't been productive except to confirm that it's an abbreviation of Latin 'filius', the feminine form of which would be 'filia'. Browsing through the archive here I turned up a post from 5 years ago where a responder suggested Fitz was used by either sex, but the link to further information she had offered has expired.

Thanks for your time.

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- Llewella (penguiny7) +1

8/4/2010, 10:48 AM

I did come across this recently when looking up something relatively unrelated:

(Talking about the history of Irish surnames)
"At first the surname was formed by prefixing Mac to the father's Christian name or O to that of a grandfather or earlier ancestor, Fitz was from the French fils meaning son. A girl added Ni before her father's name, while her mother prefixed Ban."

So going just off that information, there is no feminine version of Fitz since it's used in Irish taken from French.

- Anthroponomastics

8/4/2010, 5:43 PM

Sort of like in Welsh. Sons would have their first name + ap + their father's name, "ap" meaning son of. Daughters sometimes did the same thing but (if I'm not mistaken) used "verch" and then their father's name to indicate they were the daughters of so-and-so. They rarely took a new name upon marriage, and instead they kept the old ones.

- Anthroponomastics

8/4/2010, 10:38 AM

It's actually unisex (especially if the name in question is Fitzroy)...not as a first name, but as a surname, of course. For example, Fitzroy was the surname given to most illegitimate children of kings in medieval England (the Beauforts were an exception to this).

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