L'onomastique désigne la science de l'étymologie des noms de famille. Les éléments suivants ont été glanés ici et là lors de mes pérégrinations sur Internet, dans des forums de généalogie.
Pour l'etymologie du nom (communiquée par Emma BERTRAM de Jersey) :
"Gargate Mill first mentionned as "GARGATTE" in 1328. There is an entry in Volume 1 of "Jersey Place Name" (Charles & Joan Stevens and Jean Arthur), and in it Charles Stevens suggest that the name has possible topographical origins, or possibly even a Norse nominal origin. The name appears in Jersey only in respect of this one mill (and certain fields ssociated with it), and I do not recall any instance of it as a surname. For those interested here is the full text :
"Gargate - poss. (Gaera'sway-through, thoroughfare) Chevalier, p 214 defines as "vieux mot pour gorge" ie from medieaval Latin and this with the Jersey Norman French dgerette (gullet) suggests the means a defile between hills, a gorge; it appears as Gargate, Gargatte in 1328, 1331; but the entry in St Peters's Tithe records 1598 seems to show it as two words, Gar, the hill above, and Gatte, the defile below it. The gatte is no doubt the old Norse gata (road, way through), appearing as -gate in English place names, in which Gar- sometimes stands for the personal name Gara, Garea, or perhaps Geirr. Thus Gaera-gate might mean Garea's way through, suggesting a norseman named Gaera who may have landed at Grève de Lecq and forced his way past Gargate to the south coast.
If the Gar- is not a personal name, it might stand for JNF gar, gars, the equivalent sither of French garcon (boy, lad) or of French jars( a gander), but neither of these makes much sense with -gatte. Some years ago, a pet goose was to be seen taking a daily walk with her master past Gargate Mill; mer coincidence; the name Gargate, even if connected with geese, is far older than that."
Autre élément (de la liste OldNorseNet) :
Re: Genealogy Research
ackerpl@SLU.EDU
Thu, 22 May 1997 23:36:53 +0200 (MET DST)
Were you quoting from some source, regarding Gaera-gata? The most important thing is to find the oldest form of your name, since names change a good deal and often conceal the original form and thus its meaning. If the second element is indeed -gata, then that would be common enough in _place_ names, meaning 'road' (the Vikings are responsible for this element in the North of England, e.g. Coppergate).
First elements are often someone's name, though I don't recognize Gaeri right off, unless it's a nickname for anyone whose name begins with Geir- (which literally means 'spear'). I'm not sure what spellings to expect in the Channel Islands either, what particular dialect of Old Norse.
On Thu, 22 May 1997, Estelle Gargatte wrote:
> Morning
>
> I'm sorry I'm not a specialist about Nordic medieval history, but I'm doing
> genealogy research. More precisely, I'm French, and my ancestors where from
> Normandy. I post to several newsgroups about genealogy, and I found out
> that my name was likely to be of Nordic origin, as I found a trace of it in
> Jersey (Channel Islands) :
>
> "Thus Gaera=gata might mean Gaera's way through, suggesing a Norseman named
> Gaera who may have
> landed at Grève de Lecq...." .
>
> Could someone please help me about this, and the origin of my name ?
>
> Thank you very much
>
> Estelle, France