Awin - Name

This unusual and interesting name has three possible origins, the first most likely being a dialectal variant of a Welsh name "Awen", a muse (a source of poetic inspiration) Awen is also the name of a stream in Pembrokeshire thus this name could be locational from this place. It is also interesting to note that the Gaelic word "Abhainn", (pronounced Awin) means a River. However it is also possible that it is from the Cornish "an", the and "gwyn" white or fair, and would have been given as a nickname to a person with fair hair or place complexion. Finally, it is possibly of French Norman origin and is a regional name from the Old French "angevin", a man who came from Anjou, a province in France, which was ruled by a count as an independent territory from the 10th Century until it became the property of the English Crown for fifty years at the end of the 12th Century. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Elizabeth Awin, which was dated christened on September 6th 1685 at St. Martin-in-the-Field, Westminster, during the reign of King Charles II, "The Merry Monarch", 1660 - 1685. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.