Extend house name for medieval nobility to before they were actually called that?

Question

House Wittelsbach used to be Grafen von Scheyern until about Otto V when the family moved their main residence from castle Scheyern to castle Wittelsbach. Are we going to call the Grafen von Scheyern Wittelsbach?

Answer 1

Given in this time period, there is really no such thing as a 'last name at birth' and instead the European Aristocrats project tends to use a House or Dynastic name where available, then I see no reason why the Grafen von Scheyern shouldn't have an LNAB of Wittelsbach.

Wikipedia in both the German and English versions includes the Grafen von Scheyern in the Haus Wittelsbach or House of Wittelsbach articles.  In a volume of Europaische Stammtafeln (vol I.1) the Contents page has tafels 90-114 under the heading Haus Wittelsbach, which includes the Graf von Scheyern in tafel 90.

However if are to follow WikiTree's naming standard to use the name they were known by, then Scheyern should be the LNAB.  Again though I think Wittelsbach should be at least and Other Last Name (OLN).

Answer 2

Surely not?  That seems like an entirely unnecessary anachronism.

Answer 3

That's really the same question as: shall we record the wife's name as her husband's name because she married and took his name later...  We know the answer to that one - yours is the same question on a larger scale.  Same answer, I think.

Comments

I'd say the difference is that a woman that took her husband's name, actually used that name during her life. It isn't a LNAB, but it is a last name belonging to the woman.

In this case descendants of the Grafen von Scheyern moved to Wittelsbach. So everyone who died before the move, would never have used that name.

Answer 4

If they weren't "of Wittelsbach" when they lived, they shouldn't be called by that name either.

The most sensible thing to do is probably to put them in the category "House of Wittelsbach" and leave it at that.