A poll!

[msmcknittington]

Which name do you guys prefer as a replacement for Lady Maisry's name? Given that Maisry appears to be from the 18th century and Scottish, I don't want to use it in 13th century Wales.

I'd really prefer it if I could find something that still sounded pretty but actually meant "horrible person with a black heart", but girls don't tend to get named things like that.

So, the two choices I've discovered are sound-alikes, but Welsh. They might not be 13th century or even medieval, but they're a heck of a lot closer than Maisry and also avoid that whole "Isn't that a ballad?" thing.

Mairwen -- Combination of Welsh form of Mary (Mair) with gwen, which means "white, fair, blessed". I guess it could mean anything from "blessed virgin" to "white sea of bitterness", so there's a range of meanings there.

Meinwen -- Means "slender and white", from the Welsh main, meaning "slender", and gwen. I'm sort of imagining Lady not-Maisry as a sort of cross between Lady Macbeth and Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. Ambitious and social climbing, but tall and slender and fair. Also a mega-bitch.

[Poll #1298278]

Comments

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

It's pronounced Mare-wen, basically. Like the female horse plus the word when. I've never heard of any of those other names before, though. I've heard of Marvin/Mervin but not those.

Searching Behind the Name shows me that Marwin is the German form of Marvin, and it's pronounced Mar-veen.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

Marwan is a common boys name in most of the Arabic speaking world. (It can also be spelled Marwen.) It is pronounced slightly different (long A versus short A) but my modern brain is still saying it's just too masculine sounding. Again, it's probably just me. :-)