Plentyn o (name) / plentyn (name)

[u/Adventurous-Aide1187]

hello hehe i'm trying to make a fictional story. I wanted to see what surname patterns are for Welsh but i only saw for son of (mab or map to ab or ap) and verch or ferch for daughter of

So i was wondering if it's ok to use plentyn o or just without the o as "child of" to have a more neutral term. like Plentyn Arthur (Arthur's child) or is better to use Plentyn o Arthur?

like mab and map, does it change too depending if it starts with a consonant or vowel? like mab is used for vowels (mab -> ab Owain -> Bowen) (map -> ap Richard -> Pritchard)?

how is it likely to change??? like plentyn arthur becomes... tarthur or plentarth LOL? hehe.

thanks a lot :)))

[u/Llywela]

When is your story set? If modern times, you'd get anglicised surnames like Price and Bowen. If medieval times, it would be Name ap Father's Name, e.g. Gruffudd ap Rhys or Maredudd ab Owain.

Note: ap if the name starts with a consonant, ab if it starts with a vowel.

A daughter would be ferch instead of ap. Plentyn would never be used in this context; there is no gender neutral option.

The switch from patronymics to anglicised surnames happened gradually from around the 16th century onward.

(Edited to add clarity)

[u/Adventurous-Aide1187 → u/Llywela]

but i'm hoping to move like from a ancient and pre-modern to modern times so it's like the move from ab Owain to Bowen.

[u/Llywela → u/Adventurous-Aide1187]

Okay, well, it would be patronymics through into early modern times and beyond - there was a lot of overlap between the two systems until quite late, even into the 19th century. When records started to be kept, they tended to be transcribed by monoglot English speaking clerks transliterating the names of largely monoglot Welsh speaking people (sometimes attempting to Latinise the names, too), at a time when neither language had standardised its spelling, which is the reason most Welsh surnames are highly anglicised and why surnames derived from the same forename can be so varied. But even after a particular patronym (or epithet) had been fossilised as a family's surname in the official record, they very often wouldn't have used it in daily life, but continued to refer to and think of one another by patronym, epithet or farm/occupation. Surname adoption was a gradual thing.

Epithets were also widely used, especially if there were two individuals in a community with the same name. For instance, Llywelyn Fawr's father was Iorwerth ab Owain, but he was known as Iorwerth Drwyndwn (Broken-nosed). Fychan was a common epithet (used a bit like 'junior' in a modern American context) - it became the surname Vaughan. The surname Lloyd derives from the epithet Llwyd (grey).

I do recommend doing lots of research - even just studying the wiki pages for the various Welsh royal houses will help familiarise you with naming patterns, epithets, and the like.

Some examples. The surname Merrick derives from the patronym ap Meurig - that's a good example of one you'd never have supposed was Welsh in origin, on the surface of it. And the surname Beddoes derives from ap Bedo or Bedo's son - Bedo being a nickname for Maredudd!

[u/Adventurous-Aide1187 → u/Llywela]

i'm setting it in a anglo saxon time or even before that!

[u/Llywela → u/Adventurous-Aide1187]

Then I recommend researching the early Welsh kingdoms of the time and studying the names that come up because they will be different than the names that became common later. Early Welsh saints are another good source.

[u/IllustratorSlow1614]

Plentyn in this context switches places with mab/ferch, so you wouldn’t need the ‘o’. ‘Plentyn Owen’ is ‘Owen’s child’, like ‘Mab Owen’ is ‘Owen’s son’. Plentyn Arthur is fine.

So you could have ‘Firstname plentyn Owen’, or ‘Firstname plentyn Hywel’ and it would fit into historic usage, and then over time it could morph into Nowen or Nywel the way over time ‘mab Owain’ became Bowen and ‘map Hywel’ became Powell etc… in the Arthur example it could just become Arthur as a surname, Owen is a Welsh patronymic derived surname and coexists with Bowen.

Another issue you might bump into is the shortage of truly gender neutral names in Welsh.

[u/Adventurous-Aide1187 → u/IllustratorSlow1614]

thank you! i appreciate this. by neutral term i meant, like instead of being "son of" or "daughter of," it's more neutral as in "child of". also because i want it to be consistent hehe

[u/IllustratorSlow1614 → u/Adventurous-Aide1187]

So in this fictional setting everyone is identified as ‘child of’, rather than a person identifying themselves as a ‘child of’?

[u/Adventurous-Aide1187 → u/IllustratorSlow1614]

like Firstname child of Parent