A seaside town in Wales could be renamed as activists campaign for places to use their native titles – to make them more Welsh.
A petition calling for “Welsh names for Welsh places” is pushing for more parts of the country to ditch Anglicised place names, such as popular seaside town Barry, made popular by the hit BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey.
Presented to the Cardiff-based Senedd by linguist Mihangel ap Rhisiart, the petition hit out at the “cultural oppression” by the English against Welsh speakers.
This follows Snowdonia officially becoming Eryri, Snowdon becoming Yr Wyddfa and the Brecon Beacons becoming Bannau Brycheiniog over the last two years.
National park bosses were accused by both UK Government ministers and Welsh Conservatives of attempting to look “trendy” with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying he would use the old names.
Mr ap Rhisiart said the change would show “respect for Wales as its own nation with its own history and culture” and would acknowledge “the cultural oppression that has historically been inflicted on Wales, her language and culture” by the English.
He added: “English names might initially continue to be used by some out of habit but in all official avenues and in both spoken and written media, the original Welsh names for places in Wales should be used.”
Labour’s Welsh language minister Jeremy Miles said there was ‘a strong argument’ for using just the Welsh in some cases.
He said: “We should aim for one spelling when there are only a few letters of difference between the Welsh and English versions.”
This would mean that places with distinctive English names like Cardiff or Swansea would not be automatically changed to Caerdydd and Abertawe due to the big differences.
But Caerphilly would be changed to Caerffili, Merthyr Tydfil to Merthyr Tudful and Barry to Barri with Welsh as the only official name.
But the move isn’t popular with everyone, with name change proposals causing backlash across the UK and creating fierce battles in local communities.
Conservative Welsh Secretary David TC Davies questioned the cost of name changes and said Welsh should just be used alongside English.
