Squibs: Name Diminutives in Medieval Welsh

[hrj]

The consensus was that the new Wednesday theme should be "random bits of interesting research", so I'm going to name this series "squibs" which is an academic term for little snippets of research or analysis that don't warrant a full article. Some academic journals have had a regular section (often labeled "notes" or "correspondence") to cover this sort of material, but I'm fond of "squib" which is used in the sense of "a very small amusing explosive device". By nature, these are going to be brief and may not be as solidly footnoted and bibliographied as a more in-depth research article would be.

You may consider yourself invited to ask for squibs on particular questions or topics, with the understanding that I'll pick and choose primarily based on the intersection of personal interest and "can be written up easily and briefly."

I'll start it off with a question that gunnora posted on my facebook wall:

Do Welsh names have some regular rules in forming diminutives? Or do they form diminutives? Norse names are pretty darn simple: they take an element and make a weak noun form of it, so Gunnvor becomes Gunna, Sigrdrifa becomes Drifa, etc.

This answer is based primarily on data from legal records (rental rolls, tax rolls, court records, etc.) from the 13-15th century, and therefore the specific forms of the names are primarily mediated through Anglo-Latin or Anglo-French texts, although I'll try to use standardized spellings in talking about them.

It's easiest to see the more productive ways of creating diminutives of given names by looking at the overwhelmingly most popular names, such as David and John. There is a statistically significant tendency for individuals with high-frequency names to have their names recorded in ways that create greater distinction. (So, for example, men named David are more likely to be recorded with a more complex name structure -- e.g., a patronym and a personal nickname -- than men with more rarely occurring given names.) This means that we can't necessarily assume that high-frequency names were more likely to have diminutives in use, but perhaps that people bearing high-frequency names were more likely to be recorded by a diminutive.

David gives us a good set of examples. The basic template takes the first (or, if you will, the stressed) syllable of the name, either as it comes (Da-) or turned into a diphthong (Dai-, Dei- which may in turn be reduced back to "Di-"), and then adds one of an array of diminutive endings (or a null ending). Thus:

Da(i)-
+ 0 (Dai, Dawe)
+ a (Deia, Dia)
+ an (Deian)
+ con ? (Dicon, but possibly this is the English diminutive of Richard "Dickon")
+ cws (Dacws, Deicws, Dicws)
+ cyn (Dacyn, Deicyn, Dawcyn but see note below)
+ c + wyn (Dicwyn, but possibly a Welsh diminutive of "Dick"?)
+ o (Deio, Dio)
+ wyn (Deiwyn, Dewyn)

Endings like -an, -ws, -yn, -o, -wyn show up as productive elsewhere in word formation, but where is the "-c-" coming from in this process? One possibility is that it's being analogized from an entirely borrowed diminutive suffix "-kin" that was common in English. (See, e.g., Hankin, Malkin et al., cognate with German "-chen".) This interpretation is supported by the number of names derived from English sources for which "-cyn" is the only diminutive suffix that appears (Perkin, Philipkyn, Hankyn, Hopkyn, etc.).

The idea of "-c-" being a productive diminutive element separate from what follows it may explain the rare instance of Dicwyn, but this may instead represent the English diminutive of Richard with a Welsh suffix.

(In this context, I'm going to ignore two other variant forms of David: Davy and Dewi. "Davy" most likely comes from a reanalysis of the Welsh pronunciation of the name, where the final consonant is a fricative. "Dewi" is actually an earlier borrowing of the Biblical name at a time when it went through a different set of sound changes.)

The extremely common name John shows a similar variety of diminutives. In this case, the full Welsh form "Ieuan" is shortened to "Ian-" or "Ien-" to form the root. We also see some names with "Io-" or "Ion-" which are most likely from John as well. The records may spell these with initial "J" (or the published transcription of the record may indicate it with "J", the two symbols were not clearly differentiated in this era).

Ian-/Ien-/Io-/Ion-
+ cws (Iocws)
+ cyn (Iancyn, Iencyn, Iocyn, Ioncyn)
+ ot (Ianot)
+ yn (Ianyn, Ionyn)

Toward the later part of my period of study, the spelling sometimes indicates that an English pronunciation of the root is being used: e.g., "Siankin", "Sionun"

As noted above, it's rarer to find diminutive suffixes like this being recorded for less frequent names. But here are some examples:

Madog > Mad-
+ yn (Madyn)

Hywel > Hwl-
+ cyn (Hwlcyn)

An entirely different method of forming diminutives throws off some unexpected forms. Here the "root" (such as it is) sometimes takes little more than the initial sound (although it may take a full syllable), usually followed by a simple vowel, typically "-i" or "-o", or "-yn". The other interesting feature of this group is that names beginning in "M" may have "B" substituted. (There are complex reasons for this relating to the lenition process, but too complex to get into here.) Diminutives in this group may also appear with a definite article (think: "The Donald", or don't if you prefer).

I mentioned above that it may be the stressed syllable rather than the initial syllable that's being extracted as the root of the diminutive. For 1- or 2-syllable names this is indistinguishable. But in the case of Maredudd, where the stressed syllable is "mar-ED-udd", this may explain why the productive root is "Bed-" rather than "Bar-".

Madog > Bad-
+ i (Y Badi)

Maredudd > Bed-
+ o (Bedo)
+ yn (Bedyn)

Gruffudd > Gut-
+ o (Guto)
+ yn (Gutyn, Y Gutyn)

Iorwerth > Iol-
+ o (Iolo)
+ yn (Iolyn)

It's possible that the "Dai" as a diminutive of David may belong in this category, for we get:

David > Dai-
+ 0 (Y Dai)
+ o (Y Deio)

I haven't touched on diminutives of women's names because the nature of the data gives me less to work with. So I don't feel comfortable extrapolating any of these patterns to women at this point.

Comments

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

My goodness. I should've asked if you'd guest blog for the "nicknames" topic on the DMNES!

[hrj.livejournal.com]

If I were doing it there, I'd want to add all the footnotes and bibliography and stuff, and bring in the comparative arguments for -cyn as plausibly linguistically Welsh versus analogical. (And, I shorthanded the analogy position, because the source might well be Flemish rather than English.)

Also, I have a bunch of guest-blogs owed and need to fulfill them before taking on more!

[lferion]

Neat!

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm still not certain where 'Dyfed' comes into this and I've never been able to find out more about the name. This was the offspring of a farming family that had never stopped speaking Welsh, so I think we can rule out 'modern formation' - I'd always thought he was called 'Dafydd' until I saw it written out.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

"Dyfed" derives from a place-name. Roughly, it refers to the south-western portion of Wales. The nature and boundaries of what's covered by the name has shifted over the centuries, but it's been in continuous use since it referred to a Roman-era tribe, the Demetae.

The revival/invention/encouragement of culturally Welsh names in Wales, and especially within the Welsh-speaking population has included the adoption of a large number of items that were originally place names or common nouns as personal names. There's also a small handful of personal names that are identical to place names that saw earlier use. Giraldus Cambrensis repeats a somewhat rude joke involving both a woman and the territory named Tegeingl.

This renewed interest in culturally Welsh names began towards the end of the 19th century, but saw its strongest expansion in parallel with the Welsh nationalist movement of the mid/late 20th century.

So, in short, visually similar but unrelated to Dafydd, and simultaneously not a modern coinage but also not a traditional given name.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

This is neat.