Rhain

• Origin: Welsh
• Meaning: debated
• Gender: Male

In Welsh, Rhain is an old personal name with roots in early medieval Wales.

Rhain appears in early Welsh royal genealogies—e.g., Rhain Dremrudd and Rhain ap Cadwgan, princes of Dyfed and Brycheiniog in the 7th–9th centuries. Medieval English chroniclers translated the name as Regin.

It survives mainly in historical records and place-names (such as Llanrhian in Pembrokeshire, which means “church of Rhain”).

The exact origin is not completely certain, but most Celtic scholars connect it to the Old Welsh and Brittonic stem rān / rēn, which meant “spear” or “lance,” or figuratively “arm of strength, leader.” It has also been linked with the Welsh word, rhain (stiff). In modern Welsh, y rhain means “these.”

Today Rhain is rare as a given name, used mostly in Wales by families reviving early medieval names.

Pronunciation in modern Welsh: /r̥aɪn/ — roughly “rhine,” with the initial rh being the voiceless rolled “r” unique to Welsh.

Sources

• https://www.behindthename.com/name/rhain/submitted
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhain
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rhain