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ArchivesRe: When was Raewyn created?
in reply to a message by emsvie
Hi
My name is Raewyn and I did some research on this back in the mid 1990s - I was able to get in touch with an Americna lady who named her baby daughter at the time Raewyn and she had done quite a lot of research
Raewyn is not welsh despite what people think. It is a name derived in New Zealand.
In the late 1890s the suffrage movement in NZ was in full swing - NZ was the first country in the world to give women the vote (in 1893 I believe). Anyway apparently there was a prominent woman in the suffrage movement named Rae Wynn (first name and last name). In her honour people started naming their babies "Raewyn, Raewynn, Raewynne" etc. The name spread across the tasman to Australia.
It is MUCH more common in NZ than in Australia. In Australia whenever I have met someone who is familiar with the name they always have a NZ connection.
I hope this helps! I'd love to see more accurate information out there about the name.
I've tried searching for info about the original Rae Wynn but haven't found anything.
My name is Raewyn and I did some research on this back in the mid 1990s - I was able to get in touch with an Americna lady who named her baby daughter at the time Raewyn and she had done quite a lot of research
Raewyn is not welsh despite what people think. It is a name derived in New Zealand.
In the late 1890s the suffrage movement in NZ was in full swing - NZ was the first country in the world to give women the vote (in 1893 I believe). Anyway apparently there was a prominent woman in the suffrage movement named Rae Wynn (first name and last name). In her honour people started naming their babies "Raewyn, Raewynn, Raewynne" etc. The name spread across the tasman to Australia.
It is MUCH more common in NZ than in Australia. In Australia whenever I have met someone who is familiar with the name they always have a NZ connection.
I hope this helps! I'd love to see more accurate information out there about the name.
I've tried searching for info about the original Rae Wynn but haven't found anything.
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Replies
This doesn't explain the origin of the name Raewyn, or the story it is related to the suffrage movement. Prior to 1919 there don't appear to be any Raewyns born with the name. There is a woman born 1927 who went by Raewyn when she died in 1967 (I believe she was murdered and these details were in the newspapers), there are numerous other Raewyns mentioned in various records (not official BDM records which were still closed to public searches) in the 1960s, but we don't know how old they are. Elizabeth Ray Wynn doesn't seem to have been much of a public figure. and although she married Wynn in 1924, it doesn't seem she was widely known as Ray Wynn when ahe's mentioned in relation to the women's movement in the 1930s (concerned with subsidies and proper training for domestic help - how times change). Family members later seem to refer to her as Ray Wynn, but by then Raewyn seems to have been already in use.
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Thank you! It’s so great to know this. Having been to the UK and finding out my name wasn’t Welsh, I guessed it must have been created in New Zealand as there are so many of us here, but now I know why. Very proud to know I was named after one of the suffragettes
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Unfortunately, so far as I can determine, no such person existed. There are three Mrs Wynns who signed the main petition, none of them named Rae. No Rae Wynn is mentioned as a member of the suffrage movement or National Council for Women, and neither birth, marriage or death records exist for anyone named Rae Wynn. Although the name first appears in the '20s it doesn't become common until a generation later, among the daughters of people born in the mid-1920s, and more than 50 years after the suffrage movement brought women the vote in New Zealand.
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IS this the same person? Emily Gibson was the mother of Elizabeth Ray Wynn (nee Gibson), born 1895, who later went by Ray Wynn. If the first instances of Raewyn occur c1920, then she would be too young for anyone to base the name on her (she was married in 1924, and the biographical reference is from 1930). Unfortunately, there is also no-one else recorded in births, deaths or marriages with surname Wynn or Wyn, and a first name that is any variant of Rae or Ray. Records are only searchable for births prior to 1919, so there's no searchable record of the Raewyn born c1927 deceased 1967. The National Library of New Zealand has several references from the '50s of people named Raewyn, but it appears all of these were born after 1919, so there are nor searchable birth records.
This message was edited 12/19/2018, 9:00 PM
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