Gaian: welsh or imaginary

[CarefullyAirbrushedPotato]

purportedly a welsh boys name, but is it a made up name?
Any clues appreciated!

I know that Gaia is Greek. Have never heard of Gaian, but am not a Welsh type person so I can be ignored.

I bet Alis will know!

Hello!

As far as I know Gaian is not a Welsh name. Garan is though.

Never met one. Im a teacher in Wales. I've taught a Gawain.

There's a female character in Star Trek: New Generation called Gainan.
I like it though - sounds strong.

I knew a lovely guy called Galen

Totally not Welsh. Unless you've just heard it and that's your stab at its spelling? If so, could be Ieuan?

Never hears it either.

If you want a Welsh name then apparently this won't work. But I'm a fan of the female Gaia (Emma Thompson's daughter is Gaia), so Gaian as a masculine version sounds quite reasonable. Pleasing on the ear too.

But doesn't Gaia mean Mother Earth or something?

So there wouldn't be a male equivalent.

Gabriel?

Yes, it does uri. But some earths might self-identify as male, and we shouldn't discriminate against myth-heavy planetary bodies on the basis of their gender choices.

Gaian is what people big into Gaia and Mother Earth stuff refer to themselves as, e.g Gaian's. According to an Internet forum I've found, at any rate.

Thanks all for input!
I'll come clean (a bit)
Although we have Welsh family heritage the reason we're seriously considering it is because DD1 approves (I know this isn't important to everyone but it really is for us)
She discovered it because it's a dragon in Ivor the Engine - the other dragons are Idris, Olwen and Blodwyn which are definitely legit Welsh names, so I've been research Gaian to see if it was a little Oliver Postgate joke, which it does seem to be...

I live in Wales and have considered a lot of Welsh names for my own list, and I've never come across Gaian.

Gaius is a very similar Welsh name (it's often cited as a Latin Biblical name ['I am glad'], but it is a legitimate Arthurian name too ['Rejoicer']), so Gaian definitely sounds Welsh.

And there's also Gaia (girl), Greek 'mother [Earth] goddess', so Gaian could also mean 'Follower of Gaia'.

Short glance at Google reveals only that it is a surname from Ireland.

So yeah. Never heard of Gaian, but I can easily believe that it's Welsh.

Another one from Wales, Welsh-speaking, and never heard of Gaian.

AFAIK there's no name derived from the Latin Gaius, though from Caius the Welsh got Cai and everyone else got Kay (masc. name in Arthurian legends) and Kai. There is also an obscure saint called Caian who has a church named after him at Tregaian, sometimes spelled Tregaean, on Anglesey. (It's -gaian rather than -caian because it's mutated. Look up Welsh mutations - hours of educational fun.)

Ivor the Engine has other slightly mangled names, Llantisilly in the name of the railway for one. There are plenty of places called Llandysilio and one called Llantysilio, and Ynys Tysilio in the Menai Strait. (Tysilio is the name of another saint and he also appears in the made-up-for-tourists version of Llanfair PG.)

So I reckon it's either a mangled version of a real name like Ieuan, or a made-up name which the production team thought sounded Welsh, or as a really long shot, someone had heard of / been to Tregaian/Tregaean and thought the name was Gaean, not knowing about mutations.