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Help[Facts] Alys
BOTH: Gender female, supposed country of origin Welsh
I'm from Wales, a Welsh speaker, with a very Welsh-y background, and have always (probably naively) considered myself an expert on Welsh names. So I was surprised to learn I seem to have been wrong about one.
I was originally going to be named Alys, and my parents still regret not calling me that occasionally! (I am now Nia.) So I used it for a character in a story. There were triplets, Alys, Caitlin and Niamh. This was because Niamh is Irish, Alys (questionably) is Welsh, and Caitlin I thought was Scottish, though I now know it is also Irish. The idea was to have a name from each major Celtic name-origin-centre.
But, after posting a message about the names in the 'Writing Room', I was told that 'Alys' seemed very modern and like an alternative spelling of Alice, coined to try and look cool, and there was no reference to any Welsh origin. I checked on the database, where I saw that Alis was listed as the Welsh variant. I found this confusing, as being a Welsh speaker I cannot think of many instances where in the Welsh language 'i' is pronounced as in, say, 'tin'. 'Y' is more common, eg the word 'aderyn' meaning bird, 'nodyn' meaning note... Especially in the second syllable, 'i' is seldom used. (One exception is Catrin, however most other exceptions seem to be modern variants.) Instead, it's pronounced either 'ee', 'y', or, when following an 's', the two letters are together pronounced 'sh', eg. names Siors, Sieffre, Sian, Rhisiart or Sioned. The spelling of Alis seems very unnatural and not-Welsh to me, so I would appreciate some info about the origin of that too if that's possible.
On this website, Alys is listed simply as 'variant of Alice', in English, though in the comments it has been noted that it is also a Welsh name and a modern variant of Alice. Again I would disagree: using 'y' is much more traditional in Welsh as an 'i' sound, and though I have no evidence, I would guess that Alys is older, especially as most Welsh 'i' names tend to be variants. However it is beginning to look like I may be very wrong. Still I am confused on this pronounciation conundrum for 'i' and, what exactly the roots of 'Alys' are.
Thanks and any feedback or information would be brilliant!
I'm from Wales, a Welsh speaker, with a very Welsh-y background, and have always (probably naively) considered myself an expert on Welsh names. So I was surprised to learn I seem to have been wrong about one.
I was originally going to be named Alys, and my parents still regret not calling me that occasionally! (I am now Nia.) So I used it for a character in a story. There were triplets, Alys, Caitlin and Niamh. This was because Niamh is Irish, Alys (questionably) is Welsh, and Caitlin I thought was Scottish, though I now know it is also Irish. The idea was to have a name from each major Celtic name-origin-centre.
But, after posting a message about the names in the 'Writing Room', I was told that 'Alys' seemed very modern and like an alternative spelling of Alice, coined to try and look cool, and there was no reference to any Welsh origin. I checked on the database, where I saw that Alis was listed as the Welsh variant. I found this confusing, as being a Welsh speaker I cannot think of many instances where in the Welsh language 'i' is pronounced as in, say, 'tin'. 'Y' is more common, eg the word 'aderyn' meaning bird, 'nodyn' meaning note... Especially in the second syllable, 'i' is seldom used. (One exception is Catrin, however most other exceptions seem to be modern variants.) Instead, it's pronounced either 'ee', 'y', or, when following an 's', the two letters are together pronounced 'sh', eg. names Siors, Sieffre, Sian, Rhisiart or Sioned. The spelling of Alis seems very unnatural and not-Welsh to me, so I would appreciate some info about the origin of that too if that's possible.
On this website, Alys is listed simply as 'variant of Alice', in English, though in the comments it has been noted that it is also a Welsh name and a modern variant of Alice. Again I would disagree: using 'y' is much more traditional in Welsh as an 'i' sound, and though I have no evidence, I would guess that Alys is older, especially as most Welsh 'i' names tend to be variants. However it is beginning to look like I may be very wrong. Still I am confused on this pronounciation conundrum for 'i' and, what exactly the roots of 'Alys' are.
Thanks and any feedback or information would be brilliant!
This message was edited 4/25/2015, 12:11 PM
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Replies
Well, Alys isn't a Welsh name as such. It's one way of spelling in Welsh the name now usually spelt in English as Alice, which was transcribed in all sorts of ways when it first came to the UK, because there was little literacy and no standardisation of spelling. So in the 12th century, Alis, Alys, Alyss, Aalis, Alise, etc were all listed in records across the UK, and somehow, over the years, Alice became the most popular and most commonly used. But the variants Alis and Alys have still occasionally been used across the UK; they've never been specific to Wales.
Looking at Welsh births for Alys, the first one registered in Wales is in Pontypridd in 1888. Looking at births for Alis, it's 1840 in Wrexham, followed by one in Merthyr in 1841. So on the evidence of that, I'd say that Alis is the older spelling variant in Wales. But there was no one true way to spell anything at that point in time, and there still isn't. Welsh orthography wasn't standardised till the 1920s, and the spelling of names in Welsh records has never been standardised. For example, looking at some 19th-century Welsh births, I find Llywelyn, Llewelyn, Llewellyn, Llewellin, & Lewellin - and the first three are still in use now.
I find the -ys version more natural myself :) but I think the huge early 20th century popularity of Gladys/Gwladys and similar -ys names has just made that ending come to seem more natural to us over the years. Some more names that don't use y: Elin, Elis, Idris, Gethin, Aneirin.
Looking at Welsh births for Alys, the first one registered in Wales is in Pontypridd in 1888. Looking at births for Alis, it's 1840 in Wrexham, followed by one in Merthyr in 1841. So on the evidence of that, I'd say that Alis is the older spelling variant in Wales. But there was no one true way to spell anything at that point in time, and there still isn't. Welsh orthography wasn't standardised till the 1920s, and the spelling of names in Welsh records has never been standardised. For example, looking at some 19th-century Welsh births, I find Llywelyn, Llewelyn, Llewellyn, Llewellin, & Lewellin - and the first three are still in use now.
I find the -ys version more natural myself :) but I think the huge early 20th century popularity of Gladys/Gwladys and similar -ys names has just made that ending come to seem more natural to us over the years. Some more names that don't use y: Elin, Elis, Idris, Gethin, Aneirin.
This message was edited 4/27/2015, 5:44 AM
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Very interesting. The Welsh television personality Sara Edwards has a daughter called Hannah Elinor Alys and I had assumed it's the traditional Welsh spelling. I like it - a famous earlier bearer was Bertrand Russell's American wife Alys Pearsall Smith (1867-1951), which is how I first discovered it.
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