Welsh2 syllablesPlace name
Meaning: great settlement.
Trevor
| Origin | Welsh — from the place name Trefor |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Great settlement, from Welsh tref (homestead, settlement, town) + mawr (great, large) |
| Pronunciation | TREV-ur (two syllables) |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 — a substantial American and British name in the 1980s and 1990s, much reduced now |
| Variants | Trefor (the Welsh spelling) |
| Nicknames | Trev |
| Real places | Trefor in Gwynedd and Trevor near Llangollen both carry the name today |
History & meaning
Trevor is Welsh geography before it is anything else. Tref is one of the workhorse words of the Welsh landscape, meaning a homestead, farmstead or small settlement, and it prefixes place names all over the country. Add mawr, great or large, and you get Trefmawr, worn down over centuries to Trefor: the big settlement. This is not a poetic reconstruction. Trefor and Trevor are places you can drive to, in Gwynedd and near Llangollen respectively.
From the place came the family. The Trevors of Denbighshire were a substantial medieval Welsh house, and as with so many Welsh names the sequence ran place, then surname, then given name. Trevor crossed into general British use in the nineteenth century, became thoroughly and almost comically English by the mid-twentieth, and had a strong American run in the 1980s and 1990s. It has dropped a long way since. That is the ordinary middle age of a name with this shape, and it usually precedes a revival rather than a disappearance.
Why parents choose it
It is a genuine heritage name that requires no pronunciation lesson, which is a short list in Welsh. It sounds capable rather than delicate, and Trev is one of the more good-natured short forms in English. British parents should be aware that the name picked up a mildly comic register at home in the 1990s; American ears carry none of that baggage.
Middle names for Trevor
An -or ending pairs badly with another one, so steer away from Victor and its cousins: Trevor James, Trevor Cole, Trevor Elias, Trevor Wyn. The last keeps the Welsh thread. More on this in the middle names guide.
Famous Trevors
Trevor Noah, the South African comedian, hosted The Daily Show for seven years. Trevor Howard was the English actor at the centre of Brief Encounter and The Third Man. Trevor Hoffman saved more than six hundred games and is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sir Trevor Nunn ran both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Consider instead
Gareth is Welsh, similarly unpretentious and rather less dated. Rhys is shorter, unmistakably Welsh and currently in far better health. Trent keeps the opening consonants and loses the decade.