Can anybody explain why Heol Eglwys Fair translates specifically to St Mary’s Street? Why does the ‘Fair’ part change it from Church to St. Mary’s?
The ‘Fair’ doesn’t change the church bit, the church bit just doesn’t get used in English, just as a matter of English habit, really - Mary’s Church Street just sounds a bit odd in English, so whoever translated it went with the more ordinary sounding St Mary’s.
Of course, the English name could have been there first, in which case someone decided that ‘Heol Santes Mair’ didn’t sound right, or just happened to know that the name came from the church…
The ‘Fair’, by the way, is just Mair mutated to ‘Fair’ because Eglwys is a feminine noun…
Diolch Aran! I didn’t even think about Fair being mutated! It’s obvious now you’ve explained it! Hah.
Croeso mawr…
Mair is the Welsh version of the biblical name Miryam/Mariam/Maria/Mary, so the Welsh name of the road is something like Marychurch Street. In the English version the church part is just assumed.
It is, of course, not necessary for street names literally to translate between the languages. Just as with settlement names, they may have evolved separately with different cultural naming priorities.
Edited to add - So what Aran said, really.