Maldwyn

[PopadomPointer]

Honest opinions please

With a lovely rolling Welsh accent, yes. With a clunky English accent, pronouncing it wrong, no!

I know one Maldwyn I live in Nwales he's 65+ farmer type! But a nice chap.

My sister has a Cian (Welsh Kian) which I think is nice as I'm not a huge fan of Welsh names despite living here all my life .

there is no K is Welsh sunshine.

I know a Maldwyn. He is an old man but goes by Mal and is pretty cool. Maybe you could be trend setter and bring the name back?

Cian is a common Irish name.

I recognised that Maldwyn was probably Welsh from the title. I stil don't like it, though.

It's pronounced mal (as in malware) + dwin. It's from a Germanic name, Baldwin, which was brought over by the Normans. In Welsh B is mutated to f (pronounced like English v) in place names such as Trefaldwyn and at one time grammatically when referring to people by name (Google linguistic mutation if interested). M is also mutated to f in Welsh, so by a process called back formation we ended up with the name Maldwyn.

It is a bit old-fashioned in Wales, but fashions go round in circles and there's no reason why it shouldn't get revived.

Cian is sometimes used in Wales, particularly in the North West, because of Saint Cian, after whom Llangian on the Llŷn peninsula was named, so it's regarded as a Welsh name as well as an Irish one.

Having said that, it's possible that Cian himself was Irish as the area had a strong Irish influence in the early medieval period. The name Llŷn is the same as the Lein- element in Leinster.

I’m in Wales and no, I’m not keen. I do love some of the ‘old man’ names though. Emrys, Iestyn, Bryn, Bleddyn, Meirion.

It also reminds me of Maldwyn Pugh like a pp.

oh I love Iestyn and Ieuan, these are fine names.

If you are in "Welsh Wales", than I think it would be fine.
If you live in Kent or East Anglia I expect he'd be asked about his heritage a lot, but 'Mal' is a shortening most folk should be able to cope with. In terms of 'old fashioned' I think most names that children born in the last 5 years have been given are 'old fashioned'. Names come round every 100 years or so.

This is a Maldwyn

I like Mal and the way you say it's pronounced in Welsh.
However, with my English pronounciation it is pretty ugly sounding. It is like various combinations of the words bald, mould and mad. Not great as a name/nick name potential.
If you are in Wales though and everyone will know how to pronounce and spell it that would be ok.
If you are elsewhere and everyone will pronounce and spell it wrong, don't fo it.

I still like the name.

It's growing on me (am Welsh so I can pronounce it properly). What do you think of Carwyn? But I suppose there you have the possible rolled R problem for non-welsh speakers (neither of my kids can do a rolled R, we live in England)

I actually like it

Well, it ain't cool.

It would be a kind of go-to name for a Welsh person trying to write an old man character. It's like a Bernard or a Cyril. Old man names are back big time but some of them are definitely not - so, in England you have Alfie, Bertie, Wilfred etc all back with a vengeance but you definitely do not have Cyril. In Wales, it's more Ioan, Iestyn, Bryn and definitely NOT Maldwyn.

To me, it is associated with ageing Welshmen but maybe it’s gaining popularity here and will soon be popular again. Lead the trend! Admittedly, it’s not my favourite as there are lots of traditional names which I’d prefer (Osian, Taliesin, Iolo) but understand that these are trickier if you’re not based in Wales.

love Taliesin. I knew a young English lad with this name and he called himself Tali. really cool name.

As a non Welsh speaker, I find it a singularly unattractive name. As a PP said, it conjures bald, mould, mad, and the prefix Mal- is not a pleasant one imo. Although knowing that it's pronounced Mal- and not Maul- improves it marginally. Lots of nicer traditional Welsh names out there.

I'm facinated by Iolo as a name. How's that pronounced?

Yo - lo but not said like Yoe - loe, the O as in box

I’d say it like Yoll O - a lilltle like Follow but without the’w’ . Or pollo.

I live in a fairly (but not very) Welsh-speaking area and nobody with raise eyebrows at Maldwyn. No worse than Meurig, Emrys, Eryl, Llyr or the more fashionable Mabon, Eban/ Efan, Cai, Iolo etc. The advantage is that Mal is quite a cool nickname.

God these names are a pain to type with the English autocorrect on

Arwel. That one has totally disappeared hasn't it!

When I was younger they were all Alun, Aled, Arwel, Euros, Eirwen, Teifion.

Eirwyn rather. My autocorrect is rather different