COOL CYMRU

Surge in Welsh house names in resorts.... and what's driving it

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor [e-mail]

TOURISM is helping to drive a “Cymrufication” of place names, a major study has found. The trend was observed in two holiday hotspots in Gwynedd and it appears to be accelerating.

In the two villages, Abersoch and Llanberis, higher-the-average numbers of holiday homes have Welsh names on platforms like Booking. com. Not only are Welsh place names considered increasingly “fashionable”, they are seen as helping to promote the area to tourists.

One person in Abersoch told the study that the area’s “Welshness” was an “added bonus” for attracting tourists or in appealing to those with second homes in the area. A similar but less acute trend was seen in Llanberis but the outcomes sometimes differed, with a higher number of mixed Welsh-English names.

The findings were reported in a study commissioned by the Welsh Government into how property, street, and business names are changing across Wales. Despite high-profile switches of traditional Welsh properties to English names, the research found a clear shift towards using Welsh language place names over the past decade.

Local authorities received three times more applications for Welsh language street names than English language names between 2018-2023. Most changes to property names are in the same language. However, when the language does change, properties are at least three times more likely to be renamed from English to Welsh than the other way round.

People report that Welsh house names give them “a sense of pride, place or nostalgia”. For the study, seven locations were selected for in-depth scrutiny, including Abersoch and Llanberis. Others included Connah's Quay in Flintshire, Llanidloes in Powys and Narberth in Pembrokeshire. These were compared against data from other places in Wales, including Wrexham, Llangollen, Llandegla and Denbigh.