Editing Tredegar (section)

== The origin of the name 'Tredegar'==
Tredegar was originally part of the Tredegar Estate, the seat of which was in [[Coedkernew|Coedcernyw]], outside [[Newport, Wales|Newport]], and which extended northwards to include almost the entire length of the [[Sirhowy Valley]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Roger |title=Tredegar The history of an agricultural estate 1300-1956 |date=1990 |publisher=The Self Publishing Association for the Tredegar Memorial Trust |location=Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire |isbn=1 85421 096 3 }}</ref> Local historian Oliver Jones (1969) writes that, by c.1803, the new town that had been created after the completion of the Furnace No 3 of the local iron works:

<blockquote>...was becoming known far and wide as ''[[Tredegar Ironworks (Wales)|Tredegar Iron Works]]'' and not as ''Tredegar'' as would be expected, the town not having or being allowed to have an identity apart from the industry that sustained it. And as Tredegar Iron Works it continued to be known for many years. Tombstones in the old Cholera Cemetery on [[Cefn Golau]] describe the victims of the 1832 and 1848 epidemics as "natives of the Tredegar Iron Works" and as late as the 1860's letters were still being addressed, for example, to "Mr. John Lewis, East Lane, Tredegar Iron Works.' <ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Oliver |title=The early days of Sirhowy and Tredegar |date=1969 |publisher=The Starling Press |location=Risca, Newport }}</ref> (op. cit.: 41) {{small|(italics in original)}}</blockquote>

The previous analysis is supplemented by the fact that company's buildings appeared on the 1832 [[Ordnance Survey]] map as 'Tredegar Iron Works'. Jones didn't state when the name of the new town was shortened to 'Tredegar'. But when its name was shortened, it resulted in the existence of two Tredegars, one at each end of the estate: one at the top of the Sirhowy Valley and the other outside Newport.

In 1881, [[Octavius Morgan]], the fourth son of Sir Charles Morgan of Tredegar, had published his [[etymology]] of the name of his ancestral home,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Octavius |title=Tredegar |journal=Notes and Queries |date=1881 |volume=6 |issue=96 |pages=350–351}}</ref> which he had republished in 1886.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Octavius |title=Origin of the name Tredegar |journal=Archaeologia Cambrensis |date=1886 |volume=3 |issue=10 |pages=102–105}}</ref> He divided his etymology into two parts, about the Welsh adjective 'tref' and the noun 'degar'. He began by dismissing four derivations of 'tref': 'the foot of the camp', 'ten plough-lands', 'ten acres' and 'two forts', which he described as 'conjectural'. He then proposed his derivation, which he described as 'most obvious' and 'the true one' – that 'tref' means 'the dwelling place, chief mansion, or homestead of some important person'. Morgan then cited a poem, a manuscript and a pedigree in support of his proposal that 'degar' was derived from an historical personage called 'Teigr', whose name was changed to 'Deigr' to enable euphony (see the entry for the term in [[Phonaesthetics]]), which in turn was styled as 'degyr, which then in another context presumably became 'Degar'.

Bartrum (2009, originally 1993) explicitly concurred with Octavius Morgan in the entry for "Deigr ap Dyfnwal Hen (Legendary)" in his ''A Welsh Classical Dictionary'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bartrum |first1=Peter C. |title=A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in history and legend up to about A.D. 1000 |date=2009 |publisher=National Library of Wales |location=Aberystwyth |isbn= 9780907 158738 |page=216 |url=https://archive.org/details/a-welsh-classical-dictionary-people-in-history-and-legend-up-to-about-a.-d.-1000/page/216/mode/2up?q=Deigr |access-date=3 February 2024}}</ref> while    
Osborne and Hobbs (1992) and Owen and Morgan (2007) implicitly did so.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Osborne |first1=G.O. |last2=Hobbs |first2=G.J. |title=The place-names of western Gwent |date=1992 |publisher=Starling Press |location=Rogerstone, Newport |isbn=0 9519322 0 9 |pages=51–52 |url=https://archive.org/details/placenamesofwest0000osbo/page/2/mode/2up |access-date=31 January 2024}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Owen |first1=Hywel Wyn |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/191731809 |title=Dictionary of the place-names of Wales |last2=Morgan |first2=Richard |publisher=Gwasg Gomer |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-84323-901-7 |location=Llandysul |pages=464 |oclc=191731809}}</ref>

In the local [[Welsh language|Welsh]] dialect known as [[Gwenhwyseg]], the name was often pronounced as ''Tredecar'' (with [[provection]] of /g/ to /k/). There was also a shortened form ''Decar''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dictionary of Gwentian Welsh |url=http://www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_gwenhwyseg/geiriadur-gwenhwyseg-saesneg_BATHOR_t_3583.htm}}</ref>