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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.

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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.

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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