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Possibly the most famous quote about Welsh place names is the response given by the early 20^th century scholar Sir Ifor Williams when asked to interpret a particular name, “dim ond ffyliaid fyddai’n treio esbonio enwau lleoedd” – only fools would try to explain place names! Whilst that might be putting it a bit too strongly (speaking, as it were, as a professional fool…), Sir Ifor did have a point. To put it another way, you do have to be a bit careful when trying to identify precisely what a particular place name refers to, so in this blog I thought it would be useful to discuss some of the issues involved in the interpretation of Welsh language place names, and to point to some of the resources available to aid in the understanding of them.

The first thing to remember is that the vast majority of names are readily understandable for the fluent Welsh speaker. This however does not particularly help those people who don’t (currently!) speak Welsh. The two most asked questions about Welsh language place names are 1. What does it mean, and 2. How do you say it?

All place names are made up of elements, the individual building blocks that are put together to construct a particular name. These are words like tref, bryn, coed, mawr a bach. On our website we’ve compiled a glossary of the most common of these elements, with a translation into English, so that you can understand them. We’ve also given a few examples of these elements in use in various place names. This is particularly important because, as you may know, the first letters of Welsh words can change in a variety of ways, due to the grammatical rules of the language. This is referred to in English as initial consonant mutation, or treiglo in Welsh, and is characteristic of all the modern Celtic languages. It may sound complicated at first, but it’s actually fairly simple once you get used to it. We’ve also provided an audio file of each element being pronounced, in order to help you learn to say the names properly.

Of course, that still doesn’t help with those names who’s meanings might not be readily apparent. Most often this is down to the natural evolution and slurring of a name over the centuries. Brymbo in Flintshire is a great example of this. The name was originally Bryn y baw, but the two elements bryn and baw (dung,flith) have been pushed together in speech, and then baw has been de-voiced due to the emphasis in the word being placed on the first element. A similar process has occurred with Abermawddach, which slowly became Abermaw and then Y Bermo, anglicised to Barmouth. The only way, in these circumstances, to identify the correct meaning of the place name is to ensure that you have consulted the full range of historical attestations of the name, and particularly the earliest ones. Once you’ve done this you’ll be able to see how the name has developed over the centuries, and hopefully to discover it’s meaning.

Be careful! Some forms might suggest a particular etymology which is then contradicted by earlier forms. A good example of this is Lunnon on the Gower, which is recorded as Llwynon in Edward Lhuyd’s Parochialia in 1699. Unfortunately, earlier spellings, such as Lunan in 1322 do not support this interpretation.

It’s also very important to remember that most place names have fairly pedestrian meanings; they refer to landscape characteristics or things in it. Despite this, people are very fond of ascribing romantic or dramatic meanings to their local place names. Almost every place with coch in its name for instance, will be explained as having come about because there was a battle there, and the gwaed coch of the soldiers who died there stained the place red. The truth is unfortunately rather more prosaic; quite often it’s a reference to the colour and condition of the soil locally.

It's also worth mentioning that the thing the place name refers to may no longer exist. We know for example that Wales has been largely deforested over the centuries, but many names survive that attest to the presence of now disappeared woodland. If you come across a name with coed or prysg in it far away from any modern woodland for example, it is likely to refer to a wood that has been lost over the course of history. Some good examples of these are Cerrig yr Argoed on the uppers slopes of Dyffryn Ogwen, and Argoed Fawr, a farm above Talybont in Ceredigion. These two names give an indication of how far up the hillsides the trees used to reach.

All this explains why we’re constantly adding more and more names to our database, and why we display everything all at once on the map. The more information people have about the development of place names, the more easily they’ll be able to understand them.

Right from the very start of the project, the help of the public has been essential to our work. People have sent us individual names, lists of names, old and modern documents and every kind of map for us to upload their names to the List. We're very grateful for all the help, and for all of the names that we've been sent. Unfortunately, one thing has always hindered the work, and that's the need to geo-locate the names. We need to know, at least roughly, where each name refers to, and since we've only got one member of staff, it's impossible for us to have the degree of precise local knowledge necessary to do this all across the country. Similarly, the people who send us names know where they are, but they may not be sufficiently familiar with grid references to send us a precise enough location. We've solved this problem.

We've been doing a bit of technical development work on the website recently, and all of the changes are now live. As you can see in the above picture, we've added a new button on the left hand side of the screen. This will allow people to find the co-ordinates of anywhere in Wales. All you need to do is click on the button outlined in red in the picture. That will change the cursor. If you then click on the map, a popup will appear with the co-ordinates.

If you send us the name, co-ordinates and the date of the name (that is, as far as you know, the year since which that name has been used), we'll add them to the List as soon as possible. When you're finished searching for co-ordinates, click on the button on the left again, and the cursor will return to normal. We really hope that this will be a clear and easy way for the public to take part in the project, and to enable us to collect more names which don't exist on maps or in documents, but survive in the memories of the people.

The List of Historic Place Names was established to record and protect Wales' place names, and to prevent them being replaced by new names. We're all aware of the more famous examples of this, like Faerdref Fach being called Happy Donkey Hill because of the new donkey sanctuary, or tourists calling Llyn Bochlwyd 'Lake Australia'. It's our duty to defend Wales' place names, and ensure that they are used for generations to come. In order to help us achieve that goal, Cylch yr Iaith have sent us a list of names which are under threat of anglicisation, and they've now been added to the List. Once a name is in the List it will be remembered, even if it's disappeared from the wall plaque, so it's vital that every place name in Wales finds its way to the List, in order to be safeguarded.

You can see the names here.

It's important to remember that history is an ongoing process, and that things which are modern now will be historic one day. That's why we collect contemporary names, as well as historic forms, so that nothing is lost. A good example of this is the map that we came across in Felinwynt, Ceredigion, which shows the names of all of the houses in the area, some historic, some modern. We've added the names to the List, and we want to do the same in other areas of the country, so if your Community Council or your village has a map of local place names, please take a photo and send it in to us.

The List of Historic Place Names has reached an important new milestone recently - we now have more than 700,000 names. Recently we've been adding names from two sources; the first is A Study of Breconshire Place Names by Richard Morgan and Peter Powell, and the other is two maps of Maes Machreth, a farm near Glantwymyn in Montgomeryshire.

A Study of Breconshire Place Names was published in 1999, and contains historic forms of 340 Welsh language names from the county, as well as a description of their etymology. We're still working on uploading all the forms from the book, but so far we've got 555 of them in the List. They add to our understanding of the development of the names of Breconshire's towns, villages, mountains and rivers, and there's a few house names in the mix as well. 

The family at Maes Machreth were kind enough to give us an old map of the farm, dating from 1857, which shows the names of the fields. We're also lucky that the field names were recorded by the Tithe in 1841, so we can show that there wasn't much change in the decade and a half between the two. However, the family have also given us a modern map, showing the names which are currently in use, and there's been a fair bit of change in the intervening 180 years. Cae'r lloi is now Barnfield, Gwerglodd Adam has become Cae Maen and some names have changed location, such as Cae ogof, which has moved across the road and replaces the name Cae pen y geulan.

Continuing with field names, we're currently in discussions with Rural Payments to collect current field names, so we hope, in the near future, to be able to see how Wales field names have changed since the Tithe, and perhaps even to fill in some of the gaps that weren't recorded by the Tithe Commissioners.

As you'd expect for a website and project on Wales' place names, the Welsh language is very important to us. After all, the vast majority of our place names come from Welsh! There are thousands of people learning Welsh as adults at the moment, from all across Wales and beyond, and we believe that we have a duty to support them in their learning. That's one of the main reasons that we added sound files to the glossary for example, as you can see here.

We've also set out to preach the importance of Welsh place names, and the work of the List, directly to learners, through giving talks to Welsh for Adults classes. We contacted the Canolfan Dysgu Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, the national centre for Welsh for adults, and offered talks for classes at Uwch or Gloywi level.

We've spoken to four classes already this year, with more on the way, but as per usual with us, we want to reach as many people as possible, so if you're a Welsh teacher, or a learner, contact us through the contact form. We can offer talks either face to face or on Zoom, so that they're suitable for every class. 

The talks are tailored to focus on place names that are (reasonably) local to the learners, so every talk is different. Give it a try!

As well as the talks to classes, James has also begun a monthly column on Lingo360, the online magazine for learners. Each article is provided with a glossary, so that you can follow the article irrespective of your level of Welsh.  Two articles have been published so far; the first is a general introduction to the work of the project, which you can find here. The second is a discussion of the name Llanbrynmair, a village in Powys, and how it's moved down the valley over the past century, which can be found here.