The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1906-06-22
che NAMES OF WALES
FIVE DISTINCT WAYS sY WHICH
They HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED.

rntil ssme SIX or seven Generatfoza
Ago tue welsh People HAD 80 sar-
names AZ An, and They knew Easn
Other by one Name only.
Take any casual list Of welshman
and tick of Jones. Williams Davis,
Evans. Thomas. Griffith, Morgan,
Liewellyn, Hughes, Roberts, Lewis ami
Richards, and in some parts OF the
country especially you win practically
have exhausted the ron. In a column
of names now before the writer, drawn
from all parts of the principaIIty, there
are GOO names, aud 81 OF them ara
Evanses. 45 WIiiiamses, 20 Dayises
and no fewer than 90 OF them ara
Joneses.
II Is commonly supposed that tho
predominant Welsh names represea.
the effects of inbreedlng. 50 to speak,
in clans that are very ancient. Tho
Welsh are an old nation, and from
their geographical position they have
been very much isolated. and hence, ii
is supposed. this tendency of certain
names in the course of long cen
turtles to multiply to the exclusion Of
almost all others. This, however, AZ
regards the whole country, Is quite er-
roneous. Until some six or seven gem
erations ago the Welsh had no sur.
names at all AS is the use with most
primitive peoples. they knew each other
by one name only, and it was not until
intercourse between welshmen ana
Englishmen became greatly developed
in the sixteenth and the early part OF
the seventeenth century that the Eng
lish use OF a second name began to be
adopted by the more important Welsh
families.
There seems to be hardly surname
In Wales traceable back beyond the
sixteenth century, but before the mid
die of the seventeenth all merchants.
professional people and the richer
classes generally had adopted the pa.
tronymic Where there are half a doz-
1 CA1 A0dNl hVltcNn III kuG nuAuE y AllbkE
it Is absolutely necessary to find some
appellations that will be distinctive be-
tween them, and 1t is commonly done
in the ancient fashion. One WIN be
David Jones wyn-white David Jones
that ls-another win be David Jones
llwyd, or David Jones the gray man, or
David Jones sails. signIfying the man
who speaks English.
There are five distinct ways in which
Welsh names have been arrived at.
One class comprises names purely per
sonal and native. such as Griffith or
Rhys Rees), or else imported from
England, such as Thomas or James.
Such are strictly individual designa-
lions, and from them surnames seem
to have been evolved by custom IA
millar to readers of the Old Testament.
Thus, Hugh up David in the first in
stance means merely Hugh the son of
David, who may be David ap Thomas
Hugh the son of David the son of
Thomas. The conventional dropping
Of the "ap'' makes the individual Hugh
David, which looks like Christian and
surname, though they are really two
Christian names OF two generations. A
second way in which eventually the
surname has been arrived at has been
by absorbing the '.ap' or lab" into the
second name Thus, Thomas up Rich
ard becomes Thomas Pritchard and
Hugh alb Evan resolves into Hugh
Bevan. A third way is one already In
Dictated, in which some personal charac-
teristic, such as white or gray, tain or
stout, at first an individual nickname.
as it were. is handed down from father
to son and finally becomes the family
name.
But 1t has been said that three-fourths
or four-fifths OF modern Welsh names
have been reached by the adoption Of
a custom from England at time when
the Welsh craze for the fashionable
surname put Invention on the stretch
and led to something like regular
system of production. Engllshmen had
been accustomed to take as their sur
name the possessive case of the pa
ternal name. Thus Thomas, the son OF
Hob or Hlct, became Thomas Hobs or
Hicks, and these finally became simply
Hobs and Hicks.
Now, the Welsh have no genitive
case. Possession, ownership. is indicat-
ed by the relative position of words, so
that they could not give exactly the
English possessiye termination to their
names, and this stage was consequent
" omitted. and when. in the sixteenth
century, everybody of consequence
was feeling about for the dignity of a
surname, they adopted the English
practice of appendlng the possessive
IS" without the apostrophe, which they
did not understand. Thus Thomas ap
David. who had already become Thorn
as David-which, by the position OF the
words really meant David's son Thorn
as, exactly the same rs Thomas ap
David-took the English "s' and be-
came Thomas Davids, from which
finally emerged the name OF Davies or
Davis.
David the plous Welsh Of course got
from the Bible. and 1t was very IA
vorite name with them; hence the great
army OF Welsh Dayises. But still
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