Welsh Name-Studies

Having joined the Centre in February 2009 from the Institute of Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham, Dr David Parsons is currently assembling a bibliography of writings on names in Wales.

This will become a web-based electronic resource within the University’s ‘Global Campus’. Provisionally entitled the ‘Guide to Welsh Name-Studies’, it will offer rather more than a conventional printed bibliography, because it will contain full summaries of many articles, and electronic indexes to longer studies; in addition, all the entries will have been tagged according to the subject-matter and region with which they are concerned. It will therefore be possible to interrogate the database in detail either for discussions of particular names and terms, or for studies relating to different parts of Wales.

The ‘Guide’ contains work on both place-names and personal names. A preliminary version should be accessible on the Centre’s web-site by the end of 2009. The accompanying screen-shots give some idea of how we envisage the Guide will appear.

It is hoped that this will prove a worthwhile resource in its own right, but it is conceived as a first step towards establishing a new project on the place-names of Wales. Dr Parsons is currently consulting with interested scholars across disciplines – historians, linguists, archaeologists, geographers – to ensure that new work will be focused on the most interesting and profitable research-questions. If you would like to take part in these discussions, please contact him by email (d.parsons@wales.ac.uk).