A database of the Celtic personal names of Roman Britain (CPNRB)
Paul Russell, Alex Mullen
This database collects all the personal names from Roman Britain which are thought to contain Celtic elements. While personal names from Gaul have received considerable attention over the years in works such as GPN and KGP, the huge increase in the number of names (from the finds in Bath and Vindolanda, together with the publication of RIB II) now makes it imperative that the data is available in a easily searchable format. It is hoped that this database will offer a useful and flexible tool by which the information provided by personal names from Roman Britain can be integrated into the scholarship both of Roman Britain and of name-studies more generally (for a discussion based on the epigraphic data published up to and including 2005, see Mullen 2007a). If funding were available, this database might be a prototype for a much-needed database of all personal names attested from Roman Britain.
The data can be searched and sorted under a number of headings, such as name forms, gender, date, location of find, type of source, etc.; for details, see Further Information.
The database began as a collection of Celtic personal names from Roman Britain created by Paul Russell which was then updated and revised by Alex Mullen. The material has been converted into a database by Pádraic Moran. We are grateful to Jen Pollard for agreeing to host the database on the website of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic in the University of Cambridge.
This project has received generous financial support from the John Chadwick Greek and Latin Research Fund of the Classics Faculty in the University of Cambridge and from the Legonna Celtic Research Prize organized by the Council of the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (won by Paul Russell in 2003). We are immensely grateful to both.
Paul Russell (web page)
Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge
Alex Mullen (web page)
University of Nottingham