| Title: | Celt Notefile |
| Moderator: | TALLIS::DARCY |
| Created: | Wed Feb 19 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jun 03 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1632 |
| Total number of notes: | 20523 |
Can someone tell me whether the name Floyd occurs as either a
first or last (sur-)name in Wales?
For years I have had a theory, backed up by absolutely no evidence
at all, that the name is anglicization of Lloyd. My guess
is that the "ll" sound, unknown in english, was approximated by
the spelling "fl", since "ll" is both lateral and fricative. Thus
the "f" of the "fl" supplies the fricative feature, and "l" the
lateralness.
If the above is at all non-cranky, it suggests one or both of the
following might be true:
. the spelling "Floyd", if it occurs in Wales, would have
been introduced later than "Lloyd", as english became more
dominant,
. the "Floyd" variant would be more common among emmigrants
to english-speaking countries than in Wales.
Please feel free to share evidence or background information, either
for or against. Otherwise, I'll have to go to the library and look
it up myself!
Thanks,
Mark
welcome.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 215.1 | RGB::SEILER | Larry Seiler | Thu Jun 18 1987 02:29 | 28 | |
When we went to Wales last summer, we bought a book called "Enwau i'r Cymry"
("Welsh Personal Names"), which has the following entry:
LLwyd: man's name, means grey or holy, anglicized as "Lloyd".
Then, I looked up Lloyd and Floyd in my "Webster's New World Dictionary
of the American Language" and found the following:
Lloyd [Welsh Llwyd, literally gray] a masculine name
Floyd [variant of Lloyd, with fl for Welsh ll] a masculine name
So it was a good guess that Floyd is variant of Lloyd, and both of Welsh
origin. To my ear (and if I am pronoucing the Welsh ll correctly!),
"fl" seems a better approximation than "thl", which I was told that
some BBC announcers use when they have to pronounce Welsh place names.
But a much closer approximation is to shape your mouth and tongue for
an L sound, then blow around the edges of your tongue (unvoiced) before
voicing the L sound.
Anyway, I don't know if Floyd is actually used in Wales, but I believe
that Lloyd is reasonably common. Incidentally, one of the most common
names in Wales seems to be "Jones", an anglicized version of a Latin name
(so my book of Welsh names says, also giving two Welsh versions of the
same latin name - Ioan and Sio^n).
Enjoy,
Larry
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