Oh boy, I really took a break from forums. I think two weeks? Wow . . . Anyhew, on this topic, I put the name Doranwen together myself. I had tried a variety of names, most of them Celtic-based (Cornish names are lovely). I'd tried Elestren for a while, but then that e-mail account started charging, so . . . and somewhere around the same time, or maybe before, I decided to get a Yahoo account, and had to come up with something I would always remember, and would be easy to work with. And I put together my name. I think I thought "doran" meant healer, which is similar to its real name. It's of Scottish origin, I believe, related to the word "dorus", or door, but in this case it supposedly means someone who connects, in a metaphysical/spiritual way . . . ack, it's hard to explain. Read the book Wise Child, by Monica Furlough, I believe is the author--it's where I got it. I took it in the sense of a healer, one whose presence is beneficial to people, because that is what I wanted to be in essence (not to be confused with a life work), just in who I was. And "-wen" is a Welsh name ending meaning "white, fair, pure", etc. So I combined a word and an ending from two rather different branches of Celtic language (Irish, Scottish, and Manx Gaelic are from the Goidelic branch, whereas Welsh, Breton, and Cornish are from the Brythonic branch, often referred to as the Q-celtic and P-celtic branches for a certain sound-change that separated them hundreds of years ago) . . .
It's unique enough that I've NEVER had problems with anyone else having it--though maybe that's not so great either, since if you do a google search on "Doranwen", you'll find plenty about me, at least on my interests. The three pages show that I'm into Lois & Clark, Smallville, certain computer software, Sims 2, movie soundtracks, and conlanging . . . Yahoo search reveals I'm also into folk music. And NONE of those references were to anyone BUT me, lol. Guess I'm not very anonymous.
And I've wasted WAY too much time tonight on other forums, and only posted one or two things here at most, but it's almost 3 so I'm going to bed.
Doranwen
