Welsh surnames Facts for Kids

For a long time, people in Wales used a special way to name themselves. Their names changed with each new generation. This system was called a patronymic naming system. It meant your last name showed who your father was. But from the 1400s onwards, Welsh people started using fixed surnames, just like many other countries.

How Welsh Names Changed Over Time
Welsh Surnames Today
Bringing Back Patronymics
See also

How Welsh Names Changed Over Time

In the year 1292, almost half of all Welsh names were patronymics. In some areas, more than 70% of people used them! Other names came from nicknames or personal names. Very few names were based on a person's job.

What is a Patronymic Name?

Patronymic names changed with every new generation. A person's first name was linked to their father's first name. They used words like ap or ab (meaning "son of") or ferch (meaning "daughter of").

Here's an example:

Evan, son of Thomas, would be known as Evan ap Thomas.
Evan's son, John, would be John ab Evan.
John's son, Rees, would be Rees ap John.

Sometimes, these names could be very long! They might include the names of grandfathers and even earlier ancestors. Some names could go back seven generations! For example, Llewelyn ap Dafydd ab Ieuan ap Gruffudd ap Meredydd was a common type of name. These long patronymics were like a family tree, showing a person's male ancestors.

People think this system was important because of old Welsh law. It was vital for people to know how they were related to their ancestors. But as time went on, these old laws became less important. Slowly, fixed surnames started to replace the patronymic system. However, in some country areas, people still used patronymic names until the early 1800s.

When Surnames Became Fixed

When King Henry VIII was in charge, noble Welsh families started using fixed surnames. This idea then slowly spread to everyone else. In areas where England had a lot of influence, people stopped using patronymics earlier. Rich families and people living in towns also adopted fixed surnames sooner.

How Ap Became Part of Surnames

When people started using fixed surnames, the word ap sometimes stayed in the name. It often became shorter and was added to the beginning of the surname.

Upjohn came from ap John.
Powell came from ap Hywel.
Price came from ap Rhys.
Pritchard came from ap Richard.
Bowen came from ab Owen.

Other times, the ap was simply removed completely.

Common Welsh Surnames Today

Many common Welsh surnames today have an s added to the end of a first name. Examples include Jones, Roberts, and Edwards. This way of adding an s to patronymic surnames was also seen in England a long time ago.

Because most Welsh surnames came from patronymics, and often from a small group of popular first names, many people in Welsh communities have the same last name but are not related. So, if you meet two people named Jones in the same village, they might not be family at all!

Welsh Surnames Today

There are not many different Welsh surnames. This is partly because fewer different first names were used after the Protestant Reformation. Common Welsh surnames like Evans, Jones, Williams, Davies, and Thomas were among the top ten surnames in England and Wales in the year 2000.

Where Welsh Surnames Are Found

The Welsh Government looked into where Welsh surnames are found. They discovered that about 718,000 people in Wales have a family name that started in Wales. This is almost 35% of the Welsh population! In the rest of the United Kingdom, only about 5.3% of people have Welsh surnames. In other countries, the numbers are smaller: 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States. Overall, about 16.3 million people in these countries have a name that came from Wales.

Many Joneses on the Rugby Field!

It's quite common to see many players named Jones on the Wales national rugby union team. For example, several players named Jones played at the same time and were not closely related: Adam Jones, Dafydd Jones, Ryan Jones, Stephen Jones, Mark Jones, Adam M. Jones, Alun Wyn Jones, and Duncan Jones.

Double Surnames

Because names like Jones, Williams, and Thomas were so common, people needed a way to tell families apart. In the 1800s, people started using double surnames. They would add the name of their house, their village, or their mother's surname before their main surname. For example, "Cynddylan Jones." Sometimes, a hyphen was later added, like "Griffith-Jones."

Bringing Back Patronymics

Most Welsh surnames are fixed family names. However, there has been a small return to using patronymics in modern Wales, especially among people who speak Welsh. Sometimes, famous people use a name that sounds like a patronymic, even if their official surname is different. For example:

The folk singer and political figure Dafydd Iwan (his full name is Dafydd Iwan Jones).
Opera singer Bryn Terfel (his full name is Bryn Terfel Jones).
Classical singer Shân Cothi.
The late actress Myfanwy Talog.

Welsh surnames facts for kids

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