New Post
Search
Help[Opinions] About the (supposed) origin of Raewyn
in reply to a message by Ninor
Since I saw some people wondering about the name below, the usage of Raewyn might be a bit “Welsh,” so to speak. It does seem that is a primarily New Zealand name (and to a lesser degree, Australian), and while back when I was reading about it, I did find this thread on BtN: http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/3147981
The postings on it might not be necessarily 100% correct, but it seems that there was a woman’s suffrage movement, and a prominent woman was named Rae Wynn. And I guess Raewyn, Raewynne, ect. was sort of created as a name in honor of her.
As far as it being Welsh – going after the “Wynn” part, she may have had a Welsh surname, so it might be… indirectly Welsh, just not “Welsh enough” to be a Welsh name itself. It’s also possible that some daughters named Raewyn may have had Welsh parents themselves – in this case, it doesn’t seem like it’s too common for a lot of people, be it Welsh or otherwise, to know that “-wyn” is masculine and “-wen” is feminine, and back then a lot of people may have been illiterate, so that probably didn’t help matters either. I can only speak from an American side, but through my mom's family I'm part Welsh, and when a lot of our relatives came over, there was a LOT of variants on our (ok more like their ahaha) last name because… frankly a lot of people where poor farmers and coal miners looking for a better lot in life.
A lot of this is more guessing than anything, but I saw some questions regarding it, so I wanted to throw this out there.
Anyways, I like Raewyn. I think it’s a cute name, even if it’s a bit “trendy” looking – but it does have some older documentation anyways (late 1800s it seems), so that kind of helps it some, I think. I think it sounds rather pretty though.
As for some MN combos, the only ones I could come up with right off the bat I thought sounded pretty good was Raewyn Marie and Raewyn Louise.
The postings on it might not be necessarily 100% correct, but it seems that there was a woman’s suffrage movement, and a prominent woman was named Rae Wynn. And I guess Raewyn, Raewynne, ect. was sort of created as a name in honor of her.
As far as it being Welsh – going after the “Wynn” part, she may have had a Welsh surname, so it might be… indirectly Welsh, just not “Welsh enough” to be a Welsh name itself. It’s also possible that some daughters named Raewyn may have had Welsh parents themselves – in this case, it doesn’t seem like it’s too common for a lot of people, be it Welsh or otherwise, to know that “-wyn” is masculine and “-wen” is feminine, and back then a lot of people may have been illiterate, so that probably didn’t help matters either. I can only speak from an American side, but through my mom's family I'm part Welsh, and when a lot of our relatives came over, there was a LOT of variants on our (ok more like their ahaha) last name because… frankly a lot of people where poor farmers and coal miners looking for a better lot in life.
A lot of this is more guessing than anything, but I saw some questions regarding it, so I wanted to throw this out there.
Anyways, I like Raewyn. I think it’s a cute name, even if it’s a bit “trendy” looking – but it does have some older documentation anyways (late 1800s it seems), so that kind of helps it some, I think. I think it sounds rather pretty though.
As for some MN combos, the only ones I could come up with right off the bat I thought sounded pretty good was Raewyn Marie and Raewyn Louise.
This message was edited 10/28/2013, 4:33 PM
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1