Just for information and adding to [email protected]'s -email: Florian comes from the Saint Florian, the catholic patron of the fireguards and is still very common in Austria I also can not think about any thing with "Gertranda" except the female name Gertraud, Gertrude. Best wishes from Styria Walter -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Pat Wood [mailto:[email protected]] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Jänner 2002 01:31 An: [email protected] Betreff: First names' translation request - Results Greetings - I want to thank everyone who replied. Very much appreciated. Significant progress has been made ... with only 2 names still challenging. Peter Majerle suggested this very helpful web site http://feefhs.org/slovenia/sidb1/si-names.html I have to agree with Cherie Gardner that it seems that the ending of a name may change ... depending on how it is used in a sentence. By that I mean ... just because it ends in 'a' does not mean it is female. [Any one who studied Latin should be able to relate to those changing endings!] Is there a fluent speaker of Slovenian out there who could set us straight?? The 2 remaining challenges on my list are Gertranda and Florjan. The context in which they appear .... in a letter written by a priest in Borovnica in 1986 ... suggest that they are male names. He provided info on several families from the church records. ... In each case he seems to have grouped the sons first and then the daughters. Gertranda and Florjan were grouped with the sons' names. So am inclined to think that the translator did not err, and that both persons were sons. Again - Thanks very much! Pat Wood Fircrest, Washington ______________________________