Gwendolen

Common card · No. 389526

Gwendolen (from Welsh gwen 'white, fair, blessed' and dolen 'loop, link of a chain, ring, bow') is a feminine given name, in general use only since the 19th century. It has come to be the standard English form of Latin Guendoloena, which was first used by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the name of a legendary British queen in his History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138). He reused the name in his Life of Merlin (c. 1150) for a different character, the wife of the titular magician "Merlinus", a counsellor to King Arthur; the metre shows that Geoffrey pronounced it as a pentasyllable, Guĕndŏlŏēnă, with the "gu" pronounced /ɡw/. Dr. Arthur Hutson suggests that "Guendoloena" arose from a misreading of the old Welsh masculine name Guendoleu; Geoffrey may have mistaken the final U for an N, then Latinized *Guendolen as a feminine name to arrive at Guendoloena. In the Vita Merlini, however, Geoffrey Latinizes the masculine name of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio as Guennolous. Spelled Gwendoloena, the name reoccurs...

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