A female name. a Welsh name of which the first element is the f. of gwyn ‘white’. It is common in Welsh legends and mytha (in the Vita Merlini it is the name of Merlin’s wife) and there was a saint of the name. It came into use in England in the 19th C.

Which is the modern form of a Celtic name doubleted with Guinevere (earlier Gwenever). The first element means ‘white’; the second has occasioned dispute, for Charlotte Yonge defines the name as ‘white-browed’, while Helena Swan says that it represents ‘white bow’, symbolical for ‘the new moon’. The latter lady is tersely adequate on the etymological implications of this mainly aristocratic f. ‘Christian’. ‘Gwen, “white,” is constantly found in Welsh names: in composition it becomes wen, and ramifications... are almost endless..., names seemingly widely divergent being ultimately reducible to this word. From Gwen, or Gwen,... “white” come Gwendolen, Guinevere, Gwenhwyfar, Genevra, Jennifer, Gwynne, Winne, Wenefrid, Winefred, (Winefrid), Genevieve, Vanora, and many others,’ qq. v.

A Welsh female name. Some translate it ‘the lady of the bow;’ but gwen is not a lady, and dolen is not the weapon called a bow, but signifies a winding, bow, ring, loop. Others translate the name ‘white-browed.’ The Welsh gwendal certainly signifies ‘having a white fore-head, fair- fronted.’ Teg yw dy dwf O bai deg Indeg wendal.

A Celtic name, meaning: White-browed.