Welsh name experts help!!

[RWeatherwax]

Hi all!

Help me settle a debate here. We both really like the name Celyn. However, we are stuck whether it is a girls name or a boys name! To me it’s a boys name and I’m from West Wales. DH is from the North and says it’s a girls name! What’s your opinion?

North Wales school worker, definitely a girls name here!

The only Celyn's we know are girls. To be honest as someone that has to deal with SE Wales pronunciations of Welsh names I'd be less concerned about whether people think it's a feminine/masculine name and more about the pronunciation.

My daughter's friend Celyn has been called "ceiling" more than once.

Less of a problem in areas where Welsh is used more naturally but the further east you go, the less likely people will say it properly although maybe the Russians would if you just kept going east!

Oh no griffin, ceiling is awful! We are living in the mid west so hopefully wouldn’t have worry so much about terrible pronunciation (i hope).

The regional variations in whether it’s a boys name or a girls name have confused me so much I’m thinking of removing it from the list despite the fact I really love it and it would suit a January born baby... think it might be back to the drawing board. D’oh!

Do you like it because it sounds like Kelly/Kevin or because of Holly being popular?

Neither of those reasons Mike. I like it as a name on its own. Didn’t even associate it with Kelly/Kevin - both of which I hate.

I was trying to think of why you like it, and what might be similar (e.g. Ceri, Hefin)
How about Malen as a girl's name? MAL-enn.

I only know one person with that name and they're a girl. If you like the seasonal aspect of it could you go for Eira for a girl?

I like it because it has a nice sound, works well with our surname and it’s quite appropriate for a January born child I think. The only downside is that there doesn’t really seem to be a consensus as to whether it’s a girl or boy name - I wouldn’t use Ceri for the same reason as I know boy and girl Ceris. I’m not a fan of unisex names.
Not keen on Malen.

Or Iona? I know someone named that as she was born in January so it was Iona for Ionawr. I can't think of any boys winter names...

Eira is on our girl list yellow, that one is also a family name too which is helpful similarly Iona is on our girl name for its similarity to Ionawr (and DH spent a lot of time on the Scottish island of the same name!)

Ah, great minds! Have to say Celyn is my favourite out of the 3 just for the way it sounds but I like the fact you have some history behind the other 2 names.

I guess if you like the sound of Iona you could play around with that for boy versions I. E. Ioan or Ianto.

Ianto and Iago are on our lists - so is Siôn as a variation of John that will probably be used as a middle name (seems like every male in both of our families has John as a middle name!). I do love Celyn still but I think I’m going to have to let it stew for a bit longer in my head... thank god we have a little while to go until January!

My stepdaughter is Celyn - she has been called ceiling so many times. Also gets Cecil, Coleen, Cerys...not sure why it gets mispronounced so much.

We had Ianto and Iago on our list but ended up with a Iolo (and a Taliesin).

A girl would have been Isolde.

@yellowmaoampinball, Iona seems a bit dated, but a boy could be Ionawr, or even Ion. You could use the month name as a middle name.
A boy born around the new year could be Calan.

A september baby could be Medwyn (boy) or Medwen (girl) but as I've pp, -wyn/-wen names are dated, or you could used Medi as a mn.

A summer baby could be Hefin or Haf.

Hefin was popular around the same time as Kevin, and Carys around the same time as baby girls were called Karen, Iona around the same time as Donna. Possibly a coincidence, but Eira has shot up in popularity fairly recently, asd has Efa, which was hardly used at all before this century.

Siôn was very popular as a middle name, and often used as a surname or instead of a surname.
Anglicised surnames were often changed to the welsh form, so someone called Jones might call their child something Siôn not something Jones.

I love Iago - I was tickled when I bought the Welsh language version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that James and Lily became Iago a Lili. Harry became Harri of course.

Eira is lovely - I think it's popular because it fits the trend of short vowel heavy names. There was also a character called Eira in Merlin although she turned out to be a wrong'un sadly and got hanged.

I like Iona. It's not on my list as I'm not in Wales and I expect most people will assume the Scottish pronunciation. It would be a strong contender if I were in Wales though.

I like Alys, Mari, Morwenna and Tesni. I love Esyllt but it won't work in England unfortunately. For boys Tomos, Osian, Macsen, Aneirin and Taliesin (DH would never agree to the last two sadly).

Eirlys means snowdrop, cute for January baby girl

I know two male Celyns. One toddler in west Wales, one adult in the north.

Can't remember the Middle Welsh story but twin boys called Haf and Gef. (Summer and Winter.) Is Gef a name? It would only get misread as Jeff which is not too bad.

I do like the sound Celyn though.

twin boys called Haf and Gef - I'm not familiar with that story but Haf is used as a girl's name and the word for winter is Gaeaf, so nothing like Jeff, but it isn't used as a name AFAIK.

Celyn as a noun is masculine.

Eirlys seems a bit frumpy to me. Quite nice meaning, but the sound isn't pretty, and it seems a bit grannyish.

Iago is ok, and fits the current -o name trend. The a and o are short. It makes me think of Othello though

@MikeUniformMike in z middle Welsh the spelling can be a bit free form It's almost as if the scribes were making it up as they went along

Was brought up in/live in West Wales. Have never met a Celyn, either boy or girl, but do like the sound of it as a name, though "feels" more female to me, don't know why that should be.

@SeanCailleach, quite possibly. Do you have a link to the story, please?

Nisien and Efnisien are good names for twins.

Slightly more girl than boy. Bit made up!