Welsh Surnames is the first full-scale study of Welsh surnames and is both a classification and a dictionary. Based on Welsh, Latin and English texts, on parish registers and local histories, it traces the growth of a Welsh surnaming pattern in Wales and the Border at the end of the Middle Ages. This historical picture is completed by evidence taken from modern sources such as electoral registers from Wales and western England, surnames from Welsh and London newspapers, and telephone directories.


The book opens with a classification of the various kinds of Welsh surnames besides the innumerable examples of the well-known Welsh patronymic surname; surnames from hypocoristic forms, from anglicisations and approximations of Welsh names, from the forenames of women, from place-names, and many others. This is followed by a dictionary of Welsh surnames which also gives attention to variations and corruptions of the original names. Welsh Surnames is aimed both at the specialist and the general reader as an invaluable tool not only for the historian or the genealogist but also the geographer and sociologist.