[Facts] Re: Anglicizations of Welsh names
in reply to a message by Llewella
>Have the spellings Shon and Shan ever really been used?
They have, and they still are, even in Wales. Unless your relatives were very well-educated, literate people, the spelling of their names would have been entirely down to whoever was writing about them, at that point in time; name spelling wasn't standardised. In a newspaper from England or a non-Welsh-speaking area of Wales, journalists would almost certainly have transcribed the names by sound.
They have, and they still are, even in Wales. Unless your relatives were very well-educated, literate people, the spelling of their names would have been entirely down to whoever was writing about them, at that point in time; name spelling wasn't standardised. In a newspaper from England or a non-Welsh-speaking area of Wales, journalists would almost certainly have transcribed the names by sound.
Replies
Thanks, I wondered if it was something like that. The newspaper was the Cambrian News... which looks to be an English-language newspaper? So that could definitely be why, I didn't even think to check that!
This message was edited 5/20/2011, 3:40 AM