Talk:Caernarfonshire

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Wasn't the county almost always referred to as Caernarvonshire? I thought it was only in the last couple of decades that the switch to Cymricised spellings took place?

Caernarvonshire is a redirect to this page. The very first sentence states "Caernarfonshire, also known as Carnarvonshire"! :) Owain 09:30, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

No need to tell me what I already know. :-) Now, anyone know the answer to my questions?

I always find it difficult to understand some people's attitude towards Welsh. The English name "Caernarfonshire" / "Caernarvonshire" / "Carnarvonshire" is derived from the Welsh place name "Caernarfon". So what's this "Cymricised spellings" supposed to mean? Surely it's the other way round, "Caernarvon" being the Anglicised spelling of Caernarfon. It seems a general policy on most wiki pages to respect the original native names of people and places, even to the extent of providing them in Chinese or Persian characters. That's fine by me. Why should Welsh be the exception to this rule? For centuries the name has been "Sir Gaernarfon" in the native language of Wales, and remains so today. If there is an argument for redirecting this page anywhere logically it should be to "Sir Gaernarfon". People entering the anglicised spelling in Search would still find it. Enaidmawr 01:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

If the county existed today, it would undoubtedly be spelled "Caernarfonshire". But it ceased to exist in 1972, and surely at that time almost everyone spelled it as either "Caernarvonshire" or "Sir Gaernarfon"? If that's true then this article is mis-titled! --Dr Greg (talk) 22:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is a tricky one. What you say is true.

• The county abolished under the LGA 1972 (in 1974) was called in English Caernarvonshire, with a "v".
• There was a Caernarvonshire County Council, a Lord Lieutenant of Caernarvonshire, a High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire.
• Before the 1920s it was spelt "Carnarvonshire" in English. There is an exact date for the change, but I don't have it in front of me.
• There was, in fact, never a statutory county called "Caernarfonshire" with an f (in English).

However.... there was a move to use the "f" spelling informally. Having searched the London Gazette to see if there was any use of "Caernarfonshire" by any official body before 1974 (there wasn't), I found a few uses of "Caernarfonshire" as a postal county, the earliest being in 1972.

The town of Caernarfon seems to have officially changed the English spelling in 1974. The Royal Borough of Caernarvon (with a "v") existed up to 31 March 1974. On 1 April 1974 a community known as the Royal Town of Caernarfon appeared in its place, as far as I can tell. Hence the Local Authorities (Armorial Bearings) Order 1976, which transferred the coat of arms of the Corporation of the Royal Borough of Caernarvon to the council of the Royal Town of Caernarfon (S.I. 1976/767).

The spelling with an "f" seems to have become dominant over the years since the abolition of the county, and is used (anachronistically) by organisations of good standing e.g. [1] which talks about the records of the "Caernarfonshire Quater Sessions".

When local government was last reformed in Wales, there was very briefly a county of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire (now Gwynedd), which reinforces the "new" spelling's dominance.

I suppose there is no real problem in using a different spelling today to what was actually used when the county was extant. After all, we have articles on "Mercia" and "Wessex" which were not the exact names by which they were known at the time. Perhaps more relevantly, Hampshire was in law the "County of Southampton" until 1959, but we don't get too officious about that. I think it is a problem that can be easily solved by the use of piped links. If we are referring to an official body such as the quarter sessions named above in, say, the 19th century then it should in that instance be spelt Carnarvonshire, but linked to Caernarfonshire.

Perhaps someone could write a suitably neutral and well referenced paragraph on the English name/spelling, and hopefully save us all a lot of aggro?

Lozleader (talk) 09:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm. Just had a look at WP:NCGN and it says this:

If the place does not exist anymore, or the article deals only with a place in a period when it held a different name, the widely accepted historical English name should be used.

Now I'm really confused.... I suppose the debate centres over 1.) the continued existence of Ca(e)rnar*onshire 2.) the wide acceptance or otherwise of any spelling. 3.) the article dealing with Ca(e)rnar*onshire only in the past or not

Aaargh! Lozleader (talk) 09:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'd be interested to hear what others think. (By the way, Caernarvon railway station changed its name from "Carnarvon" to "Caernarvon" on 27 March 1926, so I guess the town & county changed their spellings around that time too. I have already been bold and renamed that article which was until yesterday called "Caernarfon railway station (L&NWR)", a spelling that it never officially had before it closed in 1970.) --Dr Greg (talk) 12:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes 1926 it was, according to the 1931 county census report: the borough was renamed on 14 January and the county on 1 July.Lozleader (talk) 13:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)