A Welsh name. Evan, or rather Evans, is merely another orthography of Jones, which has been corrupted down from the Greek original of John, q. v. About the year 1825, at the Hereford Assizes, a witness in a Welsh cause named John Jones was examined before Mr. Justice Allan Park. Being asked if he had always gone by that name, he said he had; he was then asked whether at the time he lived at Carmarthen he did not go by the name of Evan Evans, to which he replied in the affirmative. This apparent discrepancy was explained to the Court by Mr. Taunton (afterwards Sir William Taunton, and a Judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench), who stated that Evan is the Welsh name of John, and Evans that of Jones; and that John Jones might be called indifferently Evan Jones, John Evans, or Evan Evans without any real change of name. Conf. Lower’s Patronymica Britannica, xxiii.; also some curious anecdotes on the subject in his English Surnames, vol. i. p. 18.