I know that “Wyn” is frequently a middle name. When it is, is it ever used as a given name? It seems relatively infrequent as a first name.
Are you using ‘given name’ and ‘first name’ to mean the same thing? I’m not familiar with the phrase ‘given name’…
But if you mean first name - yes, Wyn/Wynne is a common enough first name… 
And here’s one Wynne that is anything but common 
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Thank you Aran and Dee. I thought perhaps I wasn’t being very clear. Sorry about that.
What I mean is: if someone’s full name is Huw Wyn Jones, for instance, is it at all likely that he would, in practice, be known as Wyn? Or would he always be called Huw?
I know it’s a weird question…
Ah, right, I see what you mean. I don’t know about likely, but I don’t think it would raise any eyebrows. Speaking as a Simon Aran Jones…
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As a nurse in Wales I meet lots of people whose ‘official’ name is one thing but who are known by another name, perhaps a middle name, perhaps another name entirely. It makes for a lot of confusion when someone is looking for a friend. They may not even know the official name.
It has something to do with so many people having the same, official, name that they have to be distinguished from other people somehow.
Hence Dai Bread and Organ Morgan in Under Milk Wood
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My neighbour when I lived in Rhoslefain was Wil y Wâl. His name was Wil, but he worked on the Council and repaired lots of stone walls… hence his nickname.
My father-in-law’s name was Harry, which everyone called him, but tradition in his family meant as he was the oldest brother, he was known as Bill. He was born and bred in Portsmouth, so no Welsh connotation there…
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It does sound confusing! I’m trying to find someone known as Wyn but…
I like Wil y Wâl. Now I know how to pronounce â.
I hope the silly nickname - middle name thing is still going strong in the youth of the valleys - when I was growing up, no one used a real middle name - everyone had a made up middle-name nickname - Dai “headbanger” jones, Steve “Biffa” Evans etc and I often wondered if this was general or perhaps a Wenglish version of an old Welsh tradition a la Sion y gof
And there was a real “Hughes the shoes” in Flint, as discussed on this forum (or one of its predecessors) way back.
But there seems to be another Welsh naming tradition which I learned from Bethan Gwanas’ books, which is that of using the name of the family farm, and possibly just location generally for people in remote rural areas. “Gwanas” is apparently the name of BG’s family’s farm.
I think the tradition of naming people after where they came from was widely used in Britain generally, before “official” surnames became the norm. (People could also be named after the trade or occupation they followed of course).
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Her first book was originally published under the name Bethan Evans. I found a second hand copy in Y Trallwng a couple of weeks ago.
Apparently gwanas is an old word for a coat peg. The farm is named so because it became a place to stay for travellers before they made the arduous trek over the pass to Dinas Mawddwy, so the story goes.
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I’m pretty sure Sian Cothi and Rhian Haf from Radio Cymru aren’t their birth names, just a way of distinguishing them from other Jones. Evans or Hughes. When I get a Welsh name I’ll be Marged Gwendraeth.
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My grandmother was buried by Jones the Box…
One friend of ours is known as Sion Mali, because his mum is called Mali - I don’t know if he is actually Jones like her or if that is his official surname.
I know quite a few Welsh people who have ‘surnames’ that haven’t come from either of their parents but were arrived at differently - sometimes just chosen, as you would a first name.
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“Jones the Box” is fantastic.
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I have a client and mother and daughter have same first name, daughter then goes by middle name.
This is an old one, but …
A spy is sent on a secret mission to find “Jones”, an agent in a remote village in Wales.
He is told that the codephrase is “River 7 is frozen over.”
On arrival in this tiny village, he asks a passer-by whether anyone called Jones lives there.
The man replies, “well there’s Jones the newsagent, Jones the greengrocer, Jones the schoolmaster, Jones the post office, and as a matter of fact my name’s Jones as well.”
The spy has a burst of hope… perhaps this is his connection?
He whispers “River 7 is frozen over.”
“Oh you want Jones the spy, he lives in that house across the road.”
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Same with my father, though he’s from Leicester; he goes by his middle name as his first name is the same as his father’s (John).
As a matter of fact, my grandfather’s father also had the first name John - I’m not sure whether he also went by that, though.
(I once asked my mother when I wasn’t “John Something” if several subsequent generations in the family were and she answered matter-of-factly that she didn’t particularly care for that tradition but that I was welcome to call my son “John Something” if I wished. I only have a daughter, though.)
We had a couple of Iantos when I was growing up so looked up on Wikipedia and it said that this was an affectionate term for someone called Ifan or John. The ones I knew were typically born Ian Thomas and Ianto was a contraction - also in my experience it wasn’t a term of affection - they were always as hard as nails and I will always have an association between a Ianto and a hard nut.
With deep apologies to anyone called Ianto, I am afraid I associate the name with someone a bit twp!! I think it must date from someone I knew as a kid, but I can’t recall from whence the association came!
Because, back when, pobl Cymru didn’t have family names, but were ap Dad’s name, I think this led to so many with similar family names and hence use of nicknames, many of which are great fun! I’m not sure what girls were called.
To @aran, I like Simon Aran, but, in your place, would have picked Aran too!!
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