Gwen no more

[Elasticsong]

Am I asking for help here? Not sure... just wanted to share.

Am in trimester 3 and we've been secretly calling our baby Gwen all along. We both love this name.

However, we've just discovered that Gwen, in Cornish, means 'arsehole'. Really. In every other bloody celtic language, it means lovely things, but in Cornish, no. Anus.

Laughing and crying about this.

We live in Cornwall.

Apologies to any Gwens out there. It's still our favourite name but we cannot unknow this.

Stick with it, who on earth knows this? Or go for Gwyn.

Could you lengthen it to Gwendoline? Are you both Cornish or do you just live there? Could you claim welsh roots? or how about Gwyneth?

Well, I'm Cornish and there are some Welsh roots... but I have several family members who are into the whole Cornish language thing and would know.

Have considered Gwyn / Gwyneth (Gwendoline doesn't cut it at all), but we're still at the 'oh-no-nothing-else-is-as-good' stage at the moment

If you didn't have family who would know, I would say 'sod it'. Plenty of names have odd meanings in some languages. Suri means pickpocket in Japanese doesn't it? And Orla has something to do with circumcision.

But if you have family it would bother, honestly I would let it go.

That's a pain! But Gwyn is a male name and every Welsh person you ever meet (there a quite a lot of us not in Wales!) would twitch.

I can't think of any names that are similar to Gwen in sound sorry :(.

Gwenan? Gwenfair? Gwenllian? OK all a bit Welsh-sounding (mainly because they are Welsh names!) but possible compromises.

If you change direction entirely, what sort of names do you like?

Gwensi?

What about Glenda?
or Wanda?

I'm not too keen on the name Gwen. But I wouldn't let this meaning thing influence you. As I doubt very many people, if any, will even know this.

Sorry but your post made me laugh! I love the name Gwen, I have a good friend called Gwen but also just love the name. I say go for it, I had never heard that it meant arsehole......

Gwen is lovely

Google says that Gwen in cornish means White

Gwenifer ? (GWEN-i-fer) Cornish form of Welsh name Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere). See also Jenifer.
Gwennol ? (GWEN-ohl) Cornish name of the bird "swallow".

www.amethyst-night.com/names/cornishfem.html

Must say from that list I like Kerenza - very pretty and has a similar sound to Gwen.......well sort off :)

Lowenna
Merryn
Rozenwyn

are all lovely I think (I have a daughter named one of those). Thanks for bringing the Gwen/Anus thing to my attention. An absolutely lovely name, but I totally get what you mean about not being able to un-know it now, especially as you live in Cornwall.

Ask those family members what they think. They may well say you are worrying about nothing.

For what it's worth, I think Gwen is lovely.

Hey, thanks for all the replies - I thought the thread had dwindled. I find it amusing now, tbh. We've gone back to the drawing board and are busy trawling all the name blogs out there so we can find something we agree with (trickier second time round, it appears).

Some of the suggestions you people have come up with have gone onto the 'maybe' list, so thank you for all the input.

As an aside, I told one of the women I work with about this today and, to my amazement, she jumped in before I'd finished and knew the Cornish meaning. So that does it, I'm afraid. It appears the Cornish language revival is real!

Still love the name though...

What about Wendy?