Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: gmb@onions.natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Subject: Re: Linguistic history of Mc & Mac in Scotland?
Message-ID: <1995May10.135154.29062@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk>
Originator: gmb@onions.natcorp
Sender: gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Organization: British National Corpus, Oxford University, GB
Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 13:51:54 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <3nk75u$gkl@mark.ucdavis.edu> "Richard D. Clark" <rdclark@wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us> writes:
> gmb@onions.natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley) wrote:
[snip]
> > bear traces of this, eg `Pritchard' = `ap Richard', `Price' = `ap
> > Rhys'. (Richard isn't a Welsh name, of course, but presumably became
[snip]
> 
> I always assumed that Richard was a Celtic name as I've known of several in
> Cornwall, and have read of others in Breton.

It's one of the names that became popular in England after the
Norman Conquest (along with, obviously, William, and Robert, and so
on). I vaguely thought it might be Germanic in origin, via Norman
French, but I suppose it might go back to the Celtic period in Western
Europe. No suitable reference book with me, I'm afraid!


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