Six degrees my ass!

[muckefuck]

So I was reading through a list of SCA name precedents (what, is that snickering I hear? Woe betide you should you ever come within range of my home-built trebuchet!) whereby I learned that not only is "Gwendolyn" a very recent name, but it actually stems from a misreading of a man's name by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The original form is Guendoleu with a final u; anyone who's ever seen a mediaeval manuscript can readily appreciate how this could be misread as n.

I was curious if the name had been revived, so I did a search on what I thought would be the modern Welsh form, Gwendolau. [Turns out I'm off by a letter; it's Gwenddolau.] I didn't get any Welshmen or references to ancient Brittanic history. Instead, I found a suit of pages, including a chat page, maintained by a Quebecois cub who goes by "Gwendolau". I'm beginning to suspect that the degree of separation between any topic under the sun and Beardom is rapidly approaching singularity.

Comments

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

dd is pronounced 'th' in Welsh so that extra letter is important. Welsh is just great for speaking in general.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Pam ti'n meddwl mod i ddim yn ei gwybod hi'n barod?

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I like that name!

Kitsune keeps threatening to build a trebuchet in the back yard. If he does, will you come visit and help us launch stuff?

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

... but ... why the gender switch? I can see the misreading, but what would cause someone to read this and go, "I'll name my DAUGHTER that!"? Obviously others have named their daughter that because other girls have been named that, but I'm referring to the original instance ...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Do you have any idea how many masculline names have gone through or are undergoing a gender switch? Especially Welsh names like Morgan, Gwyn, Bryn, Meredith, and Reese?

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

I did a search on what I thought would be the modern Welsh form, Gwendolau. [Turns out I'm off by a letter; it's Gwenddolau.]

This will confirm all your worst suspicions of me, but upon reading this line, I could do nothing but laugh and choke out "Of course! Of course it added an extra 'd'! It's Welsh!"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

More importantly, the d is in lenition position in a compound word. This wasn't shown in Middle Welsh orthography, since it was predictable to a fluent speaker of the language, but us modern dilettantes need our crutches.