Guinevere - Name

Name

The Welsh form Gwenhwyfar, which seems to be cognate with the Irish name Findabair, can be translated as The White Enchantress, or alternately The White Fay/Ghost, from Proto-Celtic *Uindo- "white, fair, holy" + *seibarV (V=vowel) "magic" (cf. Old Irish síabar "magic"). Some have suggested that the name may derive from "Gwenhwy-fawr" or Gwenhwy the Great, contrasting the character to "Gwenhwy-fach" or Gwenhwy the less; Gwenhwyfach appears in Welsh literature as a sister of Gwenhwyfar, but Welsh scholars Melville Richards and Rachel Bromwich, both dismiss this etymology (with Richards suggesting that Gwenhwyfach was a back-formation derived from an incorrect interpretation of Gwenwhy-far as Gwenhwy-fawr). Geoffrey of Monmouth renders her name Guanhumara in Latin (though there are many spelling variations to be found in the various manuscripts of his Historia Regum Britanniae). The name is spelled Guennuuar in Caradoc's Vita Gildae. Gerald of Wales calls her Wenneuereia. In the 15th century Middle Cornish play Bewnans Ke, she is called Gwynnever. The name in Modern English is spelled Jennifer, from the Cornish.