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Win(e), Wen and Wyn are all Saxon name elements with different (vaguely related) Germanic origins, not just Welsh elements (in fact there are a number of purely Saxon names (both male and female) quite similar to Bronwen/Bronwynn, including a Branwine which predates the "Welsh" Branwen). Of the three only Win is originally masculine, although the feminine -wyn (in which the y represents the i-umlaut variant of u as in German Über) is leveled in some dialects to either -win or -wen. When researching names bear in mind that given names are quite often taken from a language other than that spoken by the user, even in antiquity (this is a global phenomenon). Many Greek names come from ancient Anatolian languages, and conversely many Anatolian people had Greek names well before the area was Hellenized; many old "Welsh" names have a Latin or Germanic origin, and some ancient Germanic names are actually Celtic or even (broadly speaking) Persian. In this case the name was supposedly formed by merging the female first name Rae with the Welsh surname Wynn (from Gwyn) in honor of a person with that name (which is why it was given to girls, not boys). The only problem with this theory, is that there appears to be no record that this supposedly famous person ever existed.

This message was edited 12/19/2018, 10:18 PM