Morris, Hugh and Lewis in Wales | General | Forum

Evening,

There is a question I have had for some time, but no one has been able to answer…

In Wales, as you may know, Welsh names were prevalent up until about the Union with England, in 1534; after which point, unfortunately, popular forenames in England became widely used and has lead to Wales' generally boring surnames of Jones, Roberts and so on. However, there are a few names that entered Wales, I presume, in this period that were not popular in England: Morris, Hugh and Lewis, which have became common Welsh surnames, though their popularity as forenames seemed to diminish.

Does anyone have any idea why the names Lewis, Morris and Hugh became popular in Wales? My only observation is that Hugh (Hughes) and Lewis (Loius) are, I think, the most common surnames among the French royal family; and Morris (Maurice) is another name common in France. Though I do not know why such reverence would have been given to the French.