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The Indexing of Welsh Personal Names

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The Indexing of Welsh Personal Names The indexing of Welsh personal names Donald Moore Welsh personal names sometimes present the indexer with problems not encountered when dealing with English names. The Welsh patronymic system of identity is the most obvious; this was normal in the Middle Ages, and traces of its usage survived into the mid-nineteenth century. Patronymics have since been revived as alternative names in literary and bardic circles, while a few individuals, inspired by the precedents of history, are today attempting to use them regularly in daily life. Other sorts of alternative names, too, have been adopted by writers, poets, artists and musicians, to such effect that they are often better known to the Welsh public than the real names. A distinctive pseudonym has a special value in Wales, where a restricted selection of both first names and surnames has been the norm for the last few centuries. Apart from the names themselves, there is in Welsh a linguistic feature which can be disconcerting to those unfamiliar with the language: the 'mutation' or changing of the initial letter of a word in certain phonetic and syntactic contexts. This can also occur in place-names, which were discussed by the present writer in The Indexer 15 (1) April 1986. Some of the observations made there about the Welsh language will be relevant here also. Indexing English names 'Fitzwarin family' under 'F' and 'Sir John de la Mare' According to English practice a person is indexed under 'D' (the last, though French, being domiciled in under his or her surname. First names, taken in England).1 alphabetical order, word by word, are then used to Indexing Welsh names determine the sequence of entries when the same English conventions of nomenclature apply today in surname recurs in the index ('first' = 'Christian' = Wales as much as in England, but there are three 'baptismal' = 'given' = 'forename'). circumstances where Welsh personal names may cause When an individual has no surname, his or her unique special difficulties for the non-Welsh indexer: (a) where personal name (or regal name) is used as guideword, patronymics, male or female, are used, (b) where words followed by any epithet which might aid recognition. change their initial letter, (c) the extent to which Ordering then may be helped by the initial letter of an pseudonyms are used in certain activities. epithet. Single names may also be distinguished by the It need hardly be said that when Welsh names are individual's place of origin, e.g. Anne of Brittany, as indexed in an English-medium publication, they nor distinct from Anne of Cleves. mally obey the conventions of the English alphabet. In a The surname system in England reflects male pre Welsh-language context they will be indexed according eminence in society. Marriage has normally obliged a to the Welsh alphabet, which differs from the English in woman to abandon her maiden surname and assume her some respects. Certain sounds (some strange to English) husband's. Moreover, strict etiquette demands that when are expressed by means of double letters, or digraphs: ch, describing herself as 'Mrs', she should not use her own dd,ff, ng, II, ph, rh, th, which stand as letters of the Welsh first names, but her husband's, before her new surname, alphabet in their own right. The letters k and v, once unless she is widowed or divorced. This means that found in Welsh, have been superseded by c and / indexers may have difficulty in establishing the complete respectively, and ff has virtually supplanted ph;j is used female identity of a married woman. Conventions, only in borrowed words, and there is no x. The complete however, are changing as more married women pursue alphabet of 28 letters is reproduced below. independent careers, sometimes retaining their maiden A, B, C, Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, L, LI, M, N, O, P. Ph, R, name for business, sometimes amalgamating their own Rh, S, T, Th, U, W, Y. names with their husbands', and sometimes using their own first names before their husband's surname. Welsh mutations An indexer may face problems in the ordering of There exists in Welsh a system by which a word may medieval names preceded or followed by de or fitz. The change or 'mutate' its initial letter (or sometimes its last) main criterion is whether the second of a pair of names so as to indicate its relationship with a preceding or has become a fixed surname; if it has not, the first name following word. The nature of the change depends to becomes the guideword, e.g. 'Ralph de Chaddesdon' some extent on the sounds concerned, and also, in the appears under 'R' and 'Edward FitzOtho' under 'E\ but case of nouns and adjectives, on the gender of the word 12 The Indexer Vol. 17 No. 1 April 1990 THE INDEXING OF WELSH PERSONAL NAMES (Welsh nouns are either masculine or feminine). This standardized forms for modern listing; these will be phenomenon is deeply rooted in speech and writing. discussed later. The present context concerns only nouns and adjec The explicit sign of the male patronymic, ab or ap, tives used side by side, or nouns together in apposition. gradually disappeared, but the idea behind it remained a The second element in each case may be affected by the widespread and powerful influence on naming practice 'soft mutation' or 'lenition'. Not all letters are involved. for a long time. Between the true patronymic and the The top line of the table below shows those consonants modern surname there was an intermediate stage lasting which are liable to change when serving as the initial from the late-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth letter of a word. The lower line shows the forms which when it was common to use a Christian name followed they take when changed. It will be noted that the 'G' by an unfixed surname, the latter determined according disappears altogether. to the old patronymic custom, usually the father's Christian name, but sometimes the grandfather's, or Table of soft mutations in Welsh even the father's and grandfather's together. For example, the great Methodist leader John Elias (who Radical form CPTBDGLlMRh died in 1841) was the son of Elias Jones, who was the son Softened form GBDFDd— lfr of John Elias. An allied phenomenon was the alternative unfixed surname, such as 'David Morgan Huw' of Tre- The Welsh patronymic system filan, Cardiganshire, who was also known as 'David A person's status in Welsh medieval tribal society Morgan'.4 Such an entry will require a finding-reference depended on his or her descent in a kindred, and this had under one or the other form. There is an example from to be remembered or recorded. Since society was male- Glamorgan in a report of the Charity Commissioners, orientated in land-holding, custom and law, it was dated 1837, quoting a charitable bequest by ascertain essential for a man to know the names of his father, his David Thomas of.Eglwysilan parish, in the hundred of father's father, and so on, as well as collateral relations. Caerphilly, by Will dated 16 March 1709 'to his son A typical example may be cited from the fifteenth William David'. The latter is clearly a patronymic century: 'Rhys ap Llywelyn ap Rhys ap Llywelyn ab without ap, and it may safely be assumed that the father's Ieuan' was a Beadle or Bailiff Itinerant for the King in name was such also.5 the royal county of Carmarthen.2 He was the son of Llywelyn, who was the son of an earlier Rhys, who was Women's names in the patronymic system the son of an earlier Llywelyn, who was the son of Ieuan. A woman could be described as the daughter of her The fact that he knew the names of his great- and great- father, the daughter of her mother (less often), or, if great-grandfathers will appear remarkable today. married, the wife of her husband, or his widow. She was The word meaning 'son' is ap (used before consonants) not expected to substitute part of her name for her and ab (before vowels); there is no need for 'of in Welsh, husband's, as in a surname system, and it would have since the genitive is expressed by the juxtaposition of been ridiculous for her to 'adopt' her husband's father's nouns (there are no case endings in Welsh). Ab is a name. Thus she stood in her own line of descent. The shortened form of mab, which may also appear in its Welsh for 'daughter' is merch; in its 'softened' form verch mutated form fab; mab corresponds to the Gaelic mac (modern spelling/mr/i), it formed the link word between and the Norman-French fitz. There was much repetition the daughter's name and the father's. So 'Gwladys verch of names, both in alternate and successive generations Ithel' would be 'Gwladys, daughter of ItheF. In (which is not peculiar to the Welsh), but it is particularly matrilineal descent, 'Gwenllean vergh Angharat vergh confusing to find sons of the same father bearing the Mally' provides an example with three female names in same name as the father and each other. For example, a succession. Verch (or vergh) is frequently found in abbre certain David ap Llewellyn (Anglicized spelling) had two viated forms, such as vch, uch, vz, ver\ and ach. The sons, each named David. Epithets were added to dis usage has died out and there has been no attempt to tinguish one son from the other: the first was called revive it.
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