Personal Names
A
Alun is from the Celtic name ‘Alaunos’ and is the name of a river in Flintshire. This name has been overwhelmed by other spellings such as Alan and Allen. Alan was an early Welsh saint who became bishop of Kemper in Brittany (Gruffudd, 1980:7-8).
Aneurin is from the Latin honorius (Gruffudd, 1980:9). Five men with Aneurin as a first name appear in the NSW death register, and two as a second name.
Arianwen Blodwen Dudley died in Bowral in 1970. Her father’s name was Jehonadab.
Arwen, which cropped up in the Canberra Times in 2010, is the feminine of Arwyn, meaning ‘fine’ or ‘fair’ (Gruffudd, 1980:12).
B
Bevan (see also in Family Names) is sometimes a first name.
Berian is derived from the place name Brynberian. This was the first given name of Berian Lewis James, a President of the Canberra Welsh Society, but he found Lewis easier to use.
Beris is a mutated form of the name of an early Welsh saint, St Peris, after whom Llanberis was named. It is the first name of Beris Bird, a palliative care nurse listed in Who’s Who of Australian Women (2006:119). Beris Penrose is an Australian labour historian. Beris Gwynne, an international development specialist, has her own webpage.
Berwyn (bar = mound, wyn = white) has only two matches from the death records of NSW 1788-1979 : Kenneth Berwyn Bellis and Berwyn May White.
Blodwen (blodau = flowers, gwen = white). There were 25 deaths in NSW between 1788-1979, including Arianwen Blodwen Dudley (died 1970) and Laura Blodwen Dilys Woolcock.
Brecon, according to Dynes (1984:42), refers to the Brecon Beacons in South Wales and is the first name of Australian musician Brecon Carter. This name was not retained in the second edition of her book.
Broderick/Brodrick. Although Dynes (1984:42) indicated that this given name derives from the Welsh for ‘son of Roderick’ the name scarcely existed in Wales in 1881, with only one Brodrick, whose family name was Thorn and whose parents were born in England.
Bronwen (bron = breast, gwen = white). Although the correct ending of this name is ‘wen’, in Australia Bronwyn is the more popular girls’ name, even though in Welsh ‘wyn” is the masculine of ‘wen’. Between 1788-1979 there were 107 deceased women in NSW named Bronwyn and only 19 named Bronwen.
Bryn is Welsh for ‘hill’, while Brian or Bryan are the Irish equivalents. There were four deaths of males with the given name Bryn in NSW between 1788 and 1979. Ivor Bryn Jenkins died in 1956 and Bryn Samuel, son of Idris Samuel, in 1953. In 1987 David Brynn Hibbert was appointed Professor of Analytic Chemistry at the University of New South Wales.
Brynmor (Bryn =hill, mor or mawr = big). Brynmor Pugh Davies died in NSW, in 1963.
C
The website BabyNamesWorld lists 880 Welsh personal names and perhaps surprisingly around 10% start with the letter C. However, many of these are of historic interest only and were scarcely found in Wales in the 19th century. An example would be the group of names beginning with cyn (= chief), such as cynhaearn where haearn means iron.
The letter ‘c’ in the Welsh alphabet is pronounced like the English ‘k’. Although ‘ch’ is next in the alphabet there are hardly any names beginning with this letter, possibly because ‘ch’ has a guttural sound, as in the Scottish word ‘loch’.
Cadel or Caddell (cad = battle). Cadell was a king of Powys in the 5th or 6th century. The first name of cycling champion Cadel Evans reflects his father’s Welsh ancestry.
Caradog, Cradog (= amiable). According to A Short History of the Melbourne Welsh Church, in 1939 the Minister, Rev. R. Caradog Hughes dedicated the pulpit to the memory of the Welsh Pioneers of Victoria. Caradog Llewelyn was married in Kurri Kurri in 1924. Caradog Lloyd Jones died in 1916 aged 25 and is on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour.
Caderyn (cad = battle, teyrn = ruler). An appropriate name for a rugby forward and Caderyn Neville, born in Manly in 1988, played rugby union for the Melbourne Rebels in 2012.
Catrin is from the Greek, meaning pure. Margaret Catrin Jones married Owen Griffith in Victoria in 1905. Although popular in Wales it is rare in Australia.
Carys, Cerys, Caryl (car = love). The name Carys exists in Canberra, and Caryl in Sydney Carys and Cerys were respectively the 45th and 51st most popular girls’ names in Wales in 2010. Caryl is also an Old German name.
Cedwen is the name of a clairvoyant in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, listed in the Yellow Pages in 2012. Cedwen was an early Welsh saint.
Ceinwen (cain = beautiful, gwen =white, blessed). Amongst NSW brides married in 1945 were Ceinwen Mfanwy James in Cessnock and Ceinwen Edmunds in Hamilton. Married in Hamilton in 1952 was Patricia Ceinwen Edwards. Ceinwen Kirk was ‘Bovis Lend Lease’s most woman senior executive’ in 2003. (Dunlevy, Maurice, 2003. Australian, 26 June:14).
Ceitho was the first name of the Rev. Davies, minister of the United Welsh Church in Blackstone, Queensland in the 1920s, and a member of the Gorsedd. (Buchanan, Robyn, 1995. Ipswich, Ipswich: Ipswich City Council). Ceitho was a 6th Century Welsh saint, one of the five sons of Cynyr Farfdrwch who became saints.
Ceridwen in Welsh mythology was the mother of Taliensin. Ceridwen Legge died in Canberra in 2004 aged 98. There are 5 women of this name in the Australia Marriage Index 1788-1950.
Colwyn is a river in Wales, and Colwyn Bay is a town. Four males have this first name in the NSW death registers, two of whom have the surname Lloyd, with one Davies.