Comments (Meaning / History Only)
I called my only child, a daughter, Meredith. As a former high school teacher, I wanted a name I had no student association with.. I also wanted a name that couldn't be shortened or have a "y" added. I wanted a long first name to go with her short surname. Her husband and all of his world call her "Mer", which I don't like.
2
2
Firstly, contrary to a lot of information I've seen (including the American Webster’s dictionary), the name has nothing to do with the sea or water whatsoever. It does not mean "Guardian of the Sea", "Protector of the Sea" or any other such combination.
The original spelling was Maredudd - pronounced "Mredeeth". Often the "E" following the "M" is not pronounced. In the Welsh language and in English speaking Wales, the accent and stress is always on the Penultimate syllable, the modern pronunciation is therefore - Mer-(as in “Myrrh”) Rheh d'ith. Said quickly it almost becomes M’redith! The incorrect pronunciation that strikes the name outside of the Welsh borders is the one widely accepted in the U.S. and the rest of Britain, which curiously causes "Merry" to be a suitable shortening! To those of us who are Welsh it is grating to the ears to say the least to hear our name so mutilated! As a resident of the US I spend a lot of time correcting people in the pronunciation of the name.
Other seemingly unrelated but correct pet or short forms of the name are PRIDDY, PREEDY, PREDDY, BEDO, BEDDOES etc. Meredith is an Anglicized form of Welsh Meredudd, earlier (Middle Welsh) Maredud(d). The word is transparently a two-member compound, the second component of which goes back to Old Welsh iud(d) ‘lord’ (Indo-European *youdhyos). Cf. the -ith in Meredith and Griffith and note OW Moriud ‘sea warrior, sea lord’. In his Language and History in Early Britain (1953:346), Kenneth Jackson has marshaled a history of the name’s transformations from the Annales Cambriae forward: Morgetiud > Margetiud > Margetud > Maredud(d) > Meredith. Clearly, Old Welsh Morgetiud is not equivalent to Moriud, and a ‘sea lord’ etymology for Meredith must be rejected. In fact, no amount of licit phonological or morphological tinkering permits an equation Morgetiud = Moriud. In Morgetiud, necessarily our point of departure, -et- seemingly points to an underlying plural -etes, such as we find in early tribal names, e.g. Gaulish Namnetes. If so, then a tribal name reconstructed as *Morgetes or the like may be a preform. A Celtic *Morgetes would companionze semantically (see below) with Germanic Marcomanni ‘the men of the march or frontier men’. Initial morg- points to Common Celtic morg- / mrog- as alternative o-grade syllabifications of an Indo-European *mereg- ‘boundary land, border area’ (Pokorny’s notation: IEW 738). Such alternative Vr ~ rV syllabifications are well attested in Celtic, e.g. Latin porrum ‘leek, plant grown in a recessed bed’ from *pr-so- vs. prâtum ‘meadow’ from *prH-to- : Middle Irish ra(i)th ‘earthen rampart, garden bed’. For *morg-, cf. Gothic (etc.) marka < Indo-European morgâ feminine. For *mrog-, recall Cymmry ‘Welsh’ < *Com-mroges and compare Old Irish mruig- < *mrogi- ‘country, area’, Breton bro ‘country, district’, and so forth.
The name is of course a male Christian name with some of the earliest examples dating from the 6th century onwards. It was a name popular with some members of the ancient Welsh Royal families. Exactly how or why it should become common as a female name in the U.S is curious indeed! A girl or woman named Meredith to us, is as strange to us as a woman called Peter, Jack or David! The name's most common point of origin is in the rural border counties of Mid Wales - Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire and also over the border in Herefordshire and its neighbours. Even today, this is where the greatest concentration of the name exists.
There are several ancient families of the name - that is to say families who adopted the name as a "fixed" surname prior to the mid 1600's. The Meredith families of Llanbister/Llangunllo/ St Harmon and Nantmel being some of the most ancient. There is also a very ancient line that came from the Wrexham/Denbigh area in North Wales. This Denbighshire family are often linked with the Tudor family in a lot of genealogies, however research conducted so far has proved no link. As with most of the surviving ancient Welsh names, Meredith and its variants are PATRONYMIC, the ancient naming system of most of Wales until the last 300 years or so. Quite simply this means that all Merediths are not related to each other.
In modern Britain, the greatest concentration of the name is to be found in the Midlands of England and in the border counties close to Wales such as Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire etc. Across the border, in Wales, the name is most common in modern Glamorganshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire. A distribution pattern not that different to 200 years ago.
1
The original spelling was Maredudd - pronounced "Mredeeth". Often the "E" following the "M" is not pronounced. In the Welsh language and in English speaking Wales, the accent and stress is always on the Penultimate syllable, the modern pronunciation is therefore - Mer-(as in “Myrrh”) Rheh d'ith. Said quickly it almost becomes M’redith! The incorrect pronunciation that strikes the name outside of the Welsh borders is the one widely accepted in the U.S. and the rest of Britain, which curiously causes "Merry" to be a suitable shortening! To those of us who are Welsh it is grating to the ears to say the least to hear our name so mutilated! As a resident of the US I spend a lot of time correcting people in the pronunciation of the name.
Other seemingly unrelated but correct pet or short forms of the name are PRIDDY, PREEDY, PREDDY, BEDO, BEDDOES etc. Meredith is an Anglicized form of Welsh Meredudd, earlier (Middle Welsh) Maredud(d). The word is transparently a two-member compound, the second component of which goes back to Old Welsh iud(d) ‘lord’ (Indo-European *youdhyos). Cf. the -ith in Meredith and Griffith and note OW Moriud ‘sea warrior, sea lord’. In his Language and History in Early Britain (1953:346), Kenneth Jackson has marshaled a history of the name’s transformations from the Annales Cambriae forward: Morgetiud > Margetiud > Margetud > Maredud(d) > Meredith. Clearly, Old Welsh Morgetiud is not equivalent to Moriud, and a ‘sea lord’ etymology for Meredith must be rejected. In fact, no amount of licit phonological or morphological tinkering permits an equation Morgetiud = Moriud. In Morgetiud, necessarily our point of departure, -et- seemingly points to an underlying plural -etes, such as we find in early tribal names, e.g. Gaulish Namnetes. If so, then a tribal name reconstructed as *Morgetes or the like may be a preform. A Celtic *Morgetes would companionze semantically (see below) with Germanic Marcomanni ‘the men of the march or frontier men’. Initial morg- points to Common Celtic morg- / mrog- as alternative o-grade syllabifications of an Indo-European *mereg- ‘boundary land, border area’ (Pokorny’s notation: IEW 738). Such alternative Vr ~ rV syllabifications are well attested in Celtic, e.g. Latin porrum ‘leek, plant grown in a recessed bed’ from *pr-so- vs. prâtum ‘meadow’ from *prH-to- : Middle Irish ra(i)th ‘earthen rampart, garden bed’. For *morg-, cf. Gothic (etc.) marka < Indo-European morgâ feminine. For *mrog-, recall Cymmry ‘Welsh’ < *Com-mroges and compare Old Irish mruig- < *mrogi- ‘country, area’, Breton bro ‘country, district’, and so forth.
The name is of course a male Christian name with some of the earliest examples dating from the 6th century onwards. It was a name popular with some members of the ancient Welsh Royal families. Exactly how or why it should become common as a female name in the U.S is curious indeed! A girl or woman named Meredith to us, is as strange to us as a woman called Peter, Jack or David! The name's most common point of origin is in the rural border counties of Mid Wales - Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire and also over the border in Herefordshire and its neighbours. Even today, this is where the greatest concentration of the name exists.
There are several ancient families of the name - that is to say families who adopted the name as a "fixed" surname prior to the mid 1600's. The Meredith families of Llanbister/Llangunllo/ St Harmon and Nantmel being some of the most ancient. There is also a very ancient line that came from the Wrexham/Denbigh area in North Wales. This Denbighshire family are often linked with the Tudor family in a lot of genealogies, however research conducted so far has proved no link. As with most of the surviving ancient Welsh names, Meredith and its variants are PATRONYMIC, the ancient naming system of most of Wales until the last 300 years or so. Quite simply this means that all Merediths are not related to each other.
In modern Britain, the greatest concentration of the name is to be found in the Midlands of England and in the border counties close to Wales such as Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire etc. Across the border, in Wales, the name is most common in modern Glamorganshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire. A distribution pattern not that different to 200 years ago.
1
Comments are left by users of this website. They are not checked for accuracy.