Bad things about a Hungarian SCA persona?

Question

I've been in the SCA for almost 3 years. I fight, dance, weave, my garb is looking pretty decent and my historical knowledge is enough that I frequently don't feel like a total moron in conversation with other members. Every time I think I've chosen a persona name/country/century somebody mentions something about it that I decide I can't live with. I think I've settled on being Hungarian, named Amelia Zrinyi, around the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Answer 1

[Strictly speaking, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is post-period for the SCA. Yes, the Habsburgs took over the Hungarian throne after Mátyás, but the whole middle of the country was under Ottoman occupation from 1526 until the late 1600s, so it really wasn't an empire.]

I can think of two basic drawbacks to a Hungarian persona: name order, and lack of surviving resources.

The first issue is that in Hungarian, surnames come first: "Anthony Black" is . In period, many (most?) things were written in Latin, in which case the given name would be translated: . (In earlier period, the byname might be translated as well: .) Thus, unless you choose a given name that's written the same way in period Hungarian and Latin (Anna, Simon, Marta, etc.), you need to make a decision between period practice and SCA convenience.

If you can deal with being occasionally called Lady (or even Lord) Kolosvari when you're in fact Lady Julia, then you can go ahead and use the period Hungarian form of your name. (Mine's registered as Kolosvari Arpadne Julia.) If you want to be called Lady Katalin without fail, then you shouldn't use the period forms of your name ( or ).

The second drawback is lack of resources: Hungary's turbulent history (such as the Ottoman occupation mentioned above) means that we don't have much physical evidence about things like clothing styles, and what little there is is generally not in English. (If you read Hungarian, the difficulty becomes international shipping: Books Are Heavy.)

As for the specific name , the surname is a fine choice (modulo spelling), but I can find no evidence of in period Hungary. The usual modern form is , the earliest mention of which that I can find is from 1781-1785.
( is a locative from , a place near Zagreb in Croatia. In period Hungarian, it's spelled in various ways: , , , , , , .)

Answer 2

That's the problem with every single year, decade and century of history, there were always bad things, wars, famine, brutality, etc. The good news is that you are one of the ones whose gene pool survived all of that. You and your family made it! So, it wasn't all bad, now was it?

Answer 3

Stupid wants to know what SCA stands for?