Welsh baby names but easy to pronounce

I have a Cerys. We thought it would be easy in England but we do get a lot of seris pronuciations

Recognised you instantly Mike!

Alys doesn't seem to have been mentioned but I quite like it so shoving it here

Cerys & Rhys

I have a friend with a Seren it means star I love it x

I’m half welsh and live in England and really wanted a welsh name for my son but decided not to as I probably can’t even pronounce most of the welsh names correctly. When I had discussions with English people the following names seemed to work:

Idris
Rhys
Owen
Osian (could still need modelling on first pronunciation)
Gareth

I really wanted to use Idris, but people kept going on about Idris Elba.

Mabli, Mali, Manon are all great for girls

Mabon as well as Macsen

An M theme!

Gollum made me giggle. Gwilym is off our list as DH worked with a horrible one once.

Some of my Uni friends couldn't cope with the names of some of my relatives including Ffion (fuh fye un). They managed more common Welsh names like Owen, but not ones like Iolo and Iestyn.

If I have children I'm anticipating some interesting spellings in the new baby cards

I'd suggest Gwilym for a boy, but it will get Gwylim and probably Gollum.

Course not, I'm Arsey.

Are you Mike, Arsey? Otherwise, Mike would definitely be on this thread.

I'd forgotten about place names, but some of the towns and villages have 'unpronounceable' names. It seems it is OK for someone to correct me when I say Guild-fud (Guildford) but not for me to say it's it's not Rooth-in (Ruthin).

I saw Dylen suggested as a unisex name on a thread. Hmm, take a welsh boy's name, anglicise it and then misspell it and make it unisex.
Oh yeah, Meredith.

Brine for Bryn is a new one on me.

Saw Dylis on another thread. Those tricky vowels again.

Rh is quite difficult to say unless you've said it for years. Rid-yun is nowhere near as nice as Rhydian.

I also think that any name begin with "Rh" is often mispronounced. We went on holiday to England. Our Ds spent the week being called Rodney or Rod-er-ee.

A lot of the suggestions on his thread are definitely not easily pronounced in both Wales and England. I've heard Ffion pronounced fuh-fee-on and Bryn as brine for starters very few names probably pass the test!

The reason I post is because I have seen or heard these things.
Either you won't mind, put up with it or you'll cringe every time you hear or see your name mangled.

Wyn and Gwyn are not obviously boy's names if you are not familiar with the names.

I forgot that Gwen will get called Glen(n) sometimes and sometimes Gwyn.

@IVflytrap It is as you think.

I've seen newspaper articles with welsh names misspelt in this way plenty of times (Yes, I mean you Lsia Arsmtrong, that celebrity is Gwyneth not Gywneth, no matter how many times you get it wrong in one article), on mail for family members etc.

I grew up in Clwyd, frequently written as Clywd and occasionally as Clyde. The vowels w and y aren't vowels in English, which might explain the confusion.

Another newspaper one was the local company being described as being scottish. It's based in Deeside, in Wales.

Gwyn and Gwen will have the vowels interchanged quite often (Gywn, Gewn), and will be assumed to be of the opposite sex

I'm a bit confused by this and may be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that English people will spell or pronounce a common name like Gwen, "Gewn", and believe Gwen to be a boy's name? I can understand how Gwyn could potentially be interpreted wrongly, as people might mentally link it to a name like Guinevere and assume female, but Gwen is a very well-known girls name in England too. I've never seen/heard of Gewn or Gywn as misinterpretarions of the names. If you mean typos because you're typing too fast or whatever, fair enough but otherwise neither of those work in England at all, spelling-wise, or pronunciation-wise, really.

Macsen will get Maxon, and people might get sneery about it being chav (pah!)

very true. It does get lumped in with Jackson / Paxton / Braxton. It depends if you mind the blunter Maxun pronunciation too, it isn't a deal breaker for everyone. Would you consider it an awful faux pas or just a regional accent? The same can be said for a lot of Welsh names - well, any names actually. It's always worth checking them out in your regional accent!

I know of both a boy and a girl called Teifi - not strictly a name I think but a river in North Wales. I think it's quite nice.

Avoid:
C or g before an i, e, or y
The letters ch, dd, f, ll, rh, u, and y (if it normally gives a uh sound)
Vowel combinations like ae, ai, au, ei, eu, ew, ia, ie, io, iw, ow, uw, wy, and yw
Letter combinations like ar, ngh, si,
Names ending in -a, -an, -en, -in, -ir, -o, -ol, -on and -in, ur, -yr, and sometimes -wyn and -wen.
Names of more than one or two syllables

The name won't be bombproof, but it will reduce the chances of a lifetime of having the name misspelt and mispronounced.

It depends by what you mean by work in Wales and England.

Are you living in Wales in a welsh-speaking area, speak Welsh, and want something current but that would not be mangled, or are you in England but would like something Welsh and aren't too bothered about popularity or the name being dated or getting anglicised?

You will get suggestions that are very dated, or are misspelt (usually -wyn on girls' names) or are not welsh (Rowena, Meredith), or that will be virtually unpronounceable if you don't speak Welsh.

If you don't speak Welsh, I'd opt for something like David, Daniel, Martha or Elizabeth and use a full-on Welsh middle name.

From your OP, I'd say that you do speak Welsh, and your suggestions are fine, but Gwyn and Gwen will have the vowels interchanged quite often (Gywn, Gewn), and will be assumed to be of the opposite sex .
Macsen will get Maxon, and people might get sneery about it being chav (pah!)

I have worked in the Welsh borders a fair bit, and colleagues sometimes had welsh names, so have heard the anglicised forms. Arwel being called Ah-wul, Huw Hoo, Dewi Dowey, Eirian Erry-un, Mari Mahri/Maree, Ceri Serri/Surrey/Cherry/Cherie, Rhian Ree-un, Ree-Anne, Eleri Ellery/Ell-Airy etc.

It also depends on your surname.
You could use a welsh form of your surname but only if the whole name is very welsh.

My usual suggestion when I haven't NC is
avoid:
C or G before an i, e, or y
Vowel combinations like ae, au, ai, ei, eu, ew, ia, ie, uw, wy
Letter combinations like ngh, si, ar
The letters dd, f, ll, rh, ch, u
Names ending in -an, -en, -a, -yr, -ir, -o and -in, and sometimes -wyn and -wen.

It will narrow your list considerably.

The 'welsh name' web pages usually contain some bonkers suggestions.

Mabli