HOW TO START

Other surnames

Not all Welsh surnames came from the patronymic system. Other sources of surnames were:

Nicknames: For example Guto (from Gruffydd) gave the surname Gittins

Descriptive names: describing one the bearer’s characteristics. Examples include Anwyl (from ‘annwyl’, dear), Bach (from ‘bach’, small), Dee (from ‘du’, black), Gethin (from ‘cethin’, swarthy), Gough or Gooch (from ‘coch’, red), Gwyn (from ‘gwyn’, white), Lloyd (from ‘llwyd’, grey), Moyle / Voyle (from ‘moel’, bald), Vaughan (from ‘fychan’, younger )

Places and occupations: these are less common. Saer / Sayer (from ‘saer’, carpenter), Goyder (from ‘coedwr’, woodsman), Conway, Mostyn, Coetmore

Names from outside Wales, which are particularly common in border areas, such as Flintshire and Mongomeryshire, or in heavily Anglicized areas such as South Pembrokeshire and the Gower peninsula

Further points worth bearing in mind:

Women in Wales in earlier centuries were more likely to keep their maiden names, even on official documents

The tradition was to name the first-born son after the father’s father, the second-born after the mother’s father and the third after the father. The first-born daughter would be named after the mother’s mother, the second after the father’s mother and the third after the mother. A similar system operated in other parts of Britain

As a family historian you should be aware that the process of adopting fixed surnames was long and not straightforward. As the old tradition persisted for so long, it meant that an individual might be named differently on different documents (particularly if some documents were in Welsh and some in English). Particular care needs to be taken in those areas where the patronymic system lasted longest, such as Caernarfonshire and the Llyn Peninsula. For example a man called Dafydd ap Huw ap Tomos could be noted in records as either David Hugh, David Pugh or David Thomas.