I have often wondered why the surname Davies became “Davis” among most American families with the name. I know family names often took on different forms before 1800, before generally settling into one “dominant” form (my own name has had at least five different forms), but it’s interesting how this particular name adopted two common variants that make it possible, to some degree, to determine a family’s nationality. I would assume, given no other details, that a “John Davies” would be British, while a “John Davis” would more likely be an American.
Are there any American Davies? I think some British people do spell their name Davis.
What about this surname in Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.
Are there any less common surnames which tend to have a “British” and “American” variant. For instance, “Johnston” (common in America) and “Johnstone” (not all that common in America but common in Scotland I believe)? I think British people would pronounce both of these names in the same manner, while Americans would distinguish “Johns-ton” from “John stone”. I might be wrong though.
And how is “Davis” or “Davies” pronounced in the UK? For example, Americans would call the brothers from The Kinks Dave and Ray “Day Vees”, while I am halfway certain in the UK, Davies and Davis are both pronounced “Day vihs”.
How funny - this will be educational. I had never thought about whether “Davis” or “Davies” was more common in the USA or in the UK, so that is sort of interesting. But if you have been noticing that, I am sure you are right.(Of course, you could move to Wales and become “Dafis”, just for the fun of it. )
As for the Kinks, I am pretty sure that everyone here in the UK would pronounce it “Day-viiss” witht eh stress of the first syllable. Oh rats, no, I take that back - I am not sure at all, as i suddenly recall some people being pronounced more like “Dave-ies”. Hmm - see what I ean about interesting? I’d suggest that the former pronunciation is more common, though.
As for Johnston and JOhnstone, I thinkI’d pronounce them the same way. And of course, there is also Johnson. Then there are similar cases, like Thompson and Thomson.
Oh the fun.
I also visit a Scottish message board, and I notice that some visitors come up with some odd and funky spelling of clan names - primarily because some names, from whatever langu8age, were often jsut too much bother for a busy (to be charitable) or not-terribly-literate (to be uncharitablew) immigration officer.
Then there’s Featherstonehaugh and Fanshawe…or shoudl we carefully avoid the loopier ones like that?
As far as I can tell Ray and Dave pronounce their name like “Davis.” The only time I recall ever hearing one of them say his own name was on a radio broadcast in the mid-'70s from the Soap Opera tour. At one point Ray broke character, saying “But I’m not Normal Norman! I’m Ray Davies! And I wrote this! [singing:] ‘They seek him here/They seek him there…’”
I’m a yank, and I know a few folks with altered names. There seem to be two main reasons. One is “Americanization” on names. Prideaux became Priddy, two Polish names becames Barnes and Foster, and so on. The other is a grudge among family members. Stamps became Stamp, and Matzinger became Motsinger, all because somebody’s great-grandpa got very angry at his father.
I believe the origin of “Davis” is no less English than that of “Davies.” I doubt very much that it was created in America. Indeed, I was always of the impression that “Davies” was originally the Welsh version of the English “Davis.”
Or my family… twin brothers who emigrated from Ireland to the US, but had too many family members to bring all at once. So one kept his original spelling McLean and the other adopted McLain. Or was that the other way around…
And then there is my last name which is either a misspelling of a popular Scottish surname, a bastardization of a native american name or none of the above.
According to the US Census Bureau, those with the surname ‘Davis’ make up 0.480% of the US population, whereas those with the surname ‘Davies’ make up only 0.011%. In contrast, according to this page, there are 203,000 people in the UK with the surname ‘Davies’ compared to 70,000 who are ‘Davis’. (The US and the UK figures are compiled differently, but it is only some sense of the proportions that we need.) So there is a marked difference between the two countries, but ‘Davis’ outnumbers ‘Davies’ far more in the USA than ‘Davies’ outnumbers ‘Davis’ in the UK. Or, to put it another way, ‘Davis’ is over forty times more common than ‘Davies’ in the USA, whereas ‘Davies’ is only three times more common than ‘Davis’ in the UK.
I suspect that it is simply that ‘Davies’ was the more usual form in Wales but that this tended to become simplified to ‘Davis’ elsewhere, whether in America or in the rest of the UK. In the period since surname spellings have tended to become fixed, Welsh emigration to England has remained common in a way that Welsh emigration to the USA (comparatively speaking) has not.
Yup. My maiden name got a t added to it after my great great (great?) grandfather killed his brother’s wife over a cow. The non-murderous side of the family tried to distance themselves by adding the t.
According to this name distribution scanner, Americans with the name “Davies” were concentrated in Indiana and New York in the 1850 census, reached their peak density in Idaho, Arizona and Oklahoma in 1920, and spread out from there.
My grandfather was born Noone but changed it to Noon when he enlisted in the Navy in WWI. He said he liked it spelled backwards and forwards the same way, but a huge rift with his own father was likely the real reason. We’ve largely lost touch with the Noones. I’m sure many families have a similar history.
An expert in Celtic studies would go into detail, but as a first-cut approximation, yes, “Davy’s [son]” is the meaning. Note that one of the most common American surnames, Jones, is Welsh in origin, meaning “John’s [child].”
This is one of the three principal surname-creation modes for Wales, the other two being geographic locators (Pembroke, Meredith) and the “P-” names, which result from the clipping of the patronymic particle “Ap”: Daffyd ap Rhys becomes David Price, Gruffydd ap Hywel becomes Griffith Powell, Gwyll ap Huw becomes Will Pugh (Huw having transitioned to Hugh under Norman-French influence somewhere alogn the way).
Look at the lists here of the most common names in the U.S.:
Now look at the various lists here of the most common names in the U.K.:
Of course, some of the names on the American list aren’t of British ancestry. Note though that several of the names though are noticeably higher on the American list than the British list, even though they are of plausibly British ancestry. The name “Johnson” is somewhat higher on the American list than on any of the British lists. The name “Miller” is much higher on the American list than on any of the British lists. The name “Anderson” is higher on the American list than overall on the British lists.
This is because these names, although they occur in the U.K., usually indicate that the person bearing them is probably not of British ancestry. “Miller” is the most obvious example. Yes, it’s a British surname, but most Americans with that last name are of German (or Austrian, etc.) ancestry. It’s the anglicized version of “Müller”. Many Americans with the last name “Johnson” are not of British ancestry either. It’s an anglicized version of various names from other countries which can be translated as “John’s son”. Although the name “Anderson” occurs in the U.K., many Americans with that name are of Scandanavian ancestry, with ancestors who slightly respelled their names.
I’d buy that, but my intention was to suggest that a great deal of -s names derive from Wales, not necessarily from the Welsh language. Remember that there have been Anglophone Welsh since the Norman Conquest; “Strongbow” de Clare who married the heiress of Leinster and effectively started the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy was not in fact an Englishman but son of the Norman French Earl of Pembroke, bron and raised in Wales.
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