two little additional notes:
There's another Welsh girl's name derived from gwlad - Gwledyr (goo-LED-eer) - a much nicer name. Gwladys is pronounced goo-LAD-iss of course.
Many Welsh names are derived from Latin names, and it got to be a bit of a habit for early etymologists to try to find a similar Latin name. Welsh names that really are from Latin include:
Einion (Annianus)
Ieuan (Iohannes, as opposed to
Ioan and
Sion, from English
John)
Edern (Aeternus)
Padern (Paternus)
Meirchion (Marcianus - but Welsh March is from a word meaning horse, not from Latin
Marcus)
Anarawd (
Honoratus)
Annun (
Antonius)
Arthur (Artorius, but correctly pronounced arth-eer in Welsh)
Elffin (Alpinus)
Awst (
Augustus)
Meurig (Mauricius)
Iestyn (Justinus)
Pedrwn (Petronius)
Ynyr (
Honorius)
And many others. Not many women's names though - Sefera (fem. form of Severus) is the only one I can think of offhand.
:)