What’s in a Welsh Name?

When it’s a pub, or a village in Wales, quite a lot really! Take Swansea for example – Swansea’ doesn’t sound typically Welsh? Well, its’ home to Swansea City (the “Swans”) football team and it’s by the sea – simple isn’t it? Swansea City FC was formed 1912 and joined the Football League in 1920, so that doesn’t explain the fact that the first evidence for the place name Swansea goes back to the 10th to 12th centuries.

You’re back to Viking raids along the coast of Wales! The first bit of the town’s name comes from the Scandinavian personal name “Svein” and the second bit is the Norse word “ey” which means ‘island’ (you can still trace that in several Welsh place names along the coast like Anglesey or Bardsey). There is no island in Swansea today of course as it was effectively destroyed during the building of the docks in the 19th century.

Now take the Welsh name for Swansea – “Abertawe”. You find the first bit – “aber (meaning the mouth of a river or an estuary) in dozens of Welsh place names. The second part is the river “Tawe”. That name itself comes from a group of Celtic river names all meaning something like ‘flow’ and includes rivers like the Tame, the Thames and the Taff.

Many of the rural villages and towns of Wales got their names originally from various travellers’ taverns that were built beside passes or fords and bridges across a river. In many cases, it was the tavern that came first and the hamlet, village and sometimes a town grew around the hostelries at the ‘head of a bridge’ or ‘Bridge street’ (Pen-y-bont in Welsh). You can find villages named Pen-y-bont in Radnorshire, Montgomery and Flintshire.

Planting an evergreen tree near the door was an old established way to announce your presence and welcome people to a tavern. Llwyndafydd in Ceredigion, Llwyncelyn in Gwent and Tafarngelyn in Denbighshire are all taverns that did this and the name of the tavern became the name of the village. The tavern that gave its name to Tafarnyfedw near Llanrwst had an unusual way of announcing ‘time gentlemen please’ and opening hours. A sheaf of birch was hung above the door. When it hung down the tavern was open and when it was horizontal, the tavern was shut.

If this whets your appetite for Welsh place names and their origin, check out this article from the BBC about a Welsh name database

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