Gwendolen

Gwendolen (from Welsh gwen, meaning "white, fair, blessed", and dolen, meaning "loop, link of a chain, ring, bow") is a feminine given name, in general use only since the 19th century.

It has come to be the standard English form of Latin Guendoloena, which was first used by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the name of a legendary British queen in his History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138). He reused the name in his Life of Merlin (c. 1150) for a different character, the wife of the titular magician "Merlinus", a counsellor to King Arthur; the metre shows that Geoffrey pronounced it as a pentasyllable, Guĕndŏlŏēnă, with the "gu" pronounced /ɡw/. Dr. Arthur Hutson suggests that "Guendoloena" arose from a misreading of the old Welsh masculine name Guendoleu; Geoffrey may have mistaken the final U for an N, then Latinized *Guendolen as a feminine name to arrive at Guendoloena. In the Vita Merlini, however, Geoffrey Latinizes the masculine name of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio as Guennolous. Spelled Gwendoloena, the name reoccurs in the anonymous Latin romance De Ortu Waluuanii belonging to Arthur's queen Guinevere.

Gwendolen (novel)

Gwendolen (United Kingdom title) a 1989 novel by Nigerian-born writer Buchi Emecheta, also known by its United States title The Family. It is her tenth novel.

Plot summary

Gwendolen, pet name June–June, is a young black Jamaican girl growing up with her maternal grandmother Naomi. Her African-ancestry parents Winston and Sonia Brillianton emigrate to England when she is still a child. Sonia does not claim her until Gwendolen is eleven, paying for her passage fare to England.

In Jamaica Gwendolen is sexually abused by a middle-aged neighbor Uncle Johnny. She tells this secret to her grandmother, who confronts the man and reveals it to the rest of their neighbors, thus bringing shame to Gwendolen.

In England Gwendolen attends school and helps take care of her two younger brothers, Ronald and Marcus, and their youngest sister, Cheryl.

When her mother goes back to Jamaica for an extended visit to attend to her dead grandmother Naomi, Gwendolen was again sexually abused – this time by her father Winston. She becomes pregnant; however, it is believed that the baby belongs to Emmanuel, Gwendolen's teenaged Greek boyfriend. Gwendolen is institutionalized in a mental hospital after going hysterical, but she tells no one the parentage of her unborn child for fear that her father may be imprisoned. Coincidentally, Winston is killed in a work accident. After giving birth to a healthy daughter, Gwendolen names her "Iyamide", a Yoruba name meaning "My mother is here". Seeing their resemblance, Sonia then realizes her dead husband is the true father of Gwendolen's child.

SS Gwendolen

SS Gwendolen (sometimes misspelled Guendolen and Gwendolyn) was a British steamship on Lake Nyasa that fought in the first naval action of World War I against the German steamship Hermann von Wissman which it caught on a slipway at Sphinxhafen, now known as Liuli.

The 350 ton vessel was launched at Fort Johnston in 1899, and named after Lady Gwendolen Cecil, the then 29-year-old unmarried daughter of the Marquess of Salisbury. In 1907 the Gwendolen was the largest of three vessels formerly used as gunboats, the others being the SS Chauncy Maples and the Queen Victoria, with four civilian steamers on the lake.

From 1914 she was commanded by Captain Edmund Rhoades who attacked the Hermann von Wissman, the vessel of his friend and former drinking partner Captain Berndt, by surprise, with Berndt having been unaware that war had started.William Percival Johnson later recalled that Captain Berndt, who had been master of the German vessel for its original purpose as an anti-slavery gunboat in the 1890s, had been a good friend of the British missionaries in the days of Chauncy Maples.