Moraea spelling

Jim McKenney jamesamckenney@verizon.net
Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:29:11 PST
Thanks for that intriguing post, Neil.
 
I'll bet that just about everyone who participates in this list knows that Linnaeus is a Latin form name based on the the word for linden tree.  But Neil, your post has added a new dimension to this story for me because from what you have told us, it must have been a common practice for Swedish people of education to Latinize their names. So in a sense, what Linnaeus did with plant names was largely an extension of what some Swedish people were already doing with their family names.
 
And I noticed something else interesting: you gave the Latinized family name in two forms: a feminine form and a masculine form. I'm familiar with this practice in other modern languages such as Polish; would that have been the usual practice among Swedish families with Latinized names in the eighteenth century? In other words would Elizabeth have been introduced to friends in a formal setting as Elizabeth Moraea and her father-in-law introduced as Johan Moraeus?
 
In the modern world those names would sort differently - ha ha!

 
Jim McKenney
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