Imogen - is it Irish or Welsh?

[SaltResistantSlug]

Have read conflicting info on tinternet and wonder if anyone can say for certain one way our the other...

I don't think it's Irish. It doesn't sound Irish at all.

I like it though wherever it came from

It's a Welsh name.

I don't think it's specifically either. Shakespeare made it up. It was a miss print in one of his plays ,it was originally Innogen to denote innocence I presume, but their was a mix up at the printers- or so I've read.

It's definitely not Irish.

It's Welsh - defo

I keep seeing it listed as Welsh on internet name lists but as a native Welsh speaker it is not one I've ever come across. If it were Welsh the 'g' would be hard like in golf. Emphaticmaybe,s (sorry my apostrophe is playing silly buggers) explanation sounds plausible.

I always thought Will made it up, too.

Love it though, it's dd2's middle name.

Like mejon I am native Welsh speaker and it isn't Welsh.

Neither - a Shakespeare invention. So perhaps from Stratford?

Not Welsh, as others have said.

William Shakespeare's Cymbeline, methinks it's English.

Not Welsh at all!!

I thought it was kind of old Englishy/Germanic.

Not Irish.

Let's finish this!

According to the Puffin 'Dictionary of First Names' Imogen is an English name that is a mistaken reading of the Celtic Innogen.

The mistake was made by Shakespere in Cymbeline - the 'nn' was written 'm'.

HTH!

So your reversing your 'Welsh defo' stance then Lunarlyte?!

emphaticmaybe That's what I've heard too (my mini-beast is called Imogen. Gorgeous name!)

neither, certainly not Irish. But a lovely name, would have used it for dd2, but DP doesn't like it. can have Jen as nn, which I also like

Innogen was itself a corruption of the 16th century Irish word for daughter, 'inghean' (in modern Irish 'iníon') or so it is alleged.

Sorry, there wouldn't have been a H in an Irish name until the early 20th century when H was introduced. The spelling would have been approximately ingean (and variations of Ingean). In Irish the G would have had more of a Y sound ('ingyan') but a reader of English would probably have pronounced it as an English G.

didn't realise that math - that's lovely. Wish we'd used it now

What about Gwen or Imogen ? I think a Imogen is Welsh.

I also like Nerys as an alternative.

It’s def Shakespeare and neither Irish nor Welsh.

Love it.

If it was welsh, it would be pronounced Im-OGG-en, which it isn't.
As others pp, it's from Shakespeare

If Imogen does come from a Shakespearean transcription error - as it is widely thought it might - it is Irish as mathanxiety has said. It was used to mean 'daughter of' in names. Ní is used in modern Irish. For example, Gormflaith ingen Murchada (Gormflaith daughter of Murchad) was the name an Irish queen born in the 10th century.