The surname Floyd is an Anglicized form of the name Llwyd. The name derives from the Welsh ¡°Lloyd¡± and ¡°Llwyd,¡± meaning ¡°grey¡± and ¡°pale.¡± The Ll in Llwyd has no English word like it. ¡°Ll¡± is an aspirated L meaning you form your lips and tongue to pronounce L, but then you blow air gently around the sides of the tongue instead of saying anything. The nearest you can get to this sound in English is to pronounce it as an ¡°l¡± with a ¡°th¡± in front of it. Welsh words: llan (pronounced thlan) and llawr (pronounced thlour).Mainly for this difficulty in pronunciation the name became Anglicized. The nobility of England only began speaking ¡°English¡± in everyday language following the coronation of Henry IV in 1399. His ancestor, Henry I, was the first noble to speak English, but English was a language of the commoners of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Anglo-Saxon were Germanic people and ¡°English¡± was originally a west Germanic language. Until English, the nobles used French-Norman as their language and Law French in England from 1066 ¨C the time of the Norman Conquest. The Cymraeg language of Wales is a distant cousin to Irish and Scots Gaelic and a close brother to Breton. Cymraeg, pronounced kuhm¡¯ ra ig, is preferred to the name ¡°Welsh¡± for language as Welsh is a Germanic word denoting ¡°foreigner¡± and is used elsewhere in the world. Llwyd: The ¡°wy¡± has two distinct sounds: as in English in the word win, or the oo-ee sound: Welsh words: Wy (oo-ee); wyn (win); mwyn (mooin), or Fl¨-eed. Llwyd: The ¡°y¡± has two distinct sounds: as in English the long (¨¥) sound in happy or the vowel sound in myrrh. Welsh words: Y (uh); Yr (ur); yn (un); fry (vree); byd (beed). Llwyd: The ¡°d,¡± as it sounds in English. Welsh dwing = doing. The double ¡°Dd¡± is pronounced like the English ¡°th¡± in the words seethe or them. Welsh words: bydd (b¨¥the); sydd (s¨¥the); ddofon (th¨von); ffyddlon (futh lon). Gruffydd; the ¡°fydd¡± = fith as in GRIH-fith. Llwyd = aspirated L (thl) oo ee d. Cymraeg: Gwd lwc. Ai hop ddat yw can ryd ddys and ddat yt meiks sens tw yw. Iff yw can ryd ddys, dden yw ar dwing ffaen and wil haf no problems at ol yn lyrnyng awr ffaen Welsh alffabet. English: Good luck: I hope that you can read this, and that it makes sense to you. If you can read this, then you are doing fine and will have no problems at all in learning our fine Welsh alphabet. The Floyd name was likely given to someone who had grey hair, a pale complexion, or who lived near the grey river Lwyd. The name may have been Anglicized in England near the province of Gwynedd. Clwyd was a county in Wales situated in the north-east of the country and bordered Gwynedd to its immediate west and England and Shropshire to its east and southeast. From Shropshire (Salop) in England Floyds are known to have lived. The River Clwyd is in North Wales and is from which the county derived its name. The river Lwyd (Afon Lwyd) is a small river in south Wales. In Cymraeg the name means, ¡°Grey River.¡± The famous Welsh scientist and linguist, Edward Lhuyd, has his name sometimes written as Llwyd in recent times. He was the son of Edward Lloyd and was born in 1660 in Shropshire. The name Floyd and Flood may have been Anglicized in Ireland as well, from the region on the middle eastern coast south of Ulster known as The Pale. The Pale was an area controlled by England. The name in this case would be a double entendre. The Pale (An Ph¨¢il in Irish) was directly under the control of the English government in the late Middle Ages. When the area controlled by the English shrank and as parts of its perimeter in counties Meath and Kildare were fenced or ditched, it became known as the Pale, deriving from the Latin word meaning a stake or a fence. During control of the Pale by the English an attempt was made to forbid the Irish language and culture in that area and Anglicize foreign names. There exists centuries old history of rebellion, conflict and war between Ireland and the Kingdom of England. From 1594 to 1603 The Nine Years' War took place in Ireland. This war was caused by the collision between the ambition of the Gaelic Irish chieftain Hugh O'Neill and the advance of the English state in Ireland from local control over The Pale to control of the whole island. The English monarchy reconquered Ireland following this war. This time the resulting peace terms meant that the Tudor Dynasty, Henry VII to Elizabeth I, would imposeEnglish law, language and culture. According to tradition many Floyds claim descent from Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (ap = son of), however Gruffydd is pronounced GRIH-fith and does not contain a ¡°Floyd¡± sound as it may appear. Llywelyn (son of) Gruffydd would become Llywelyn the Last. He was born c. 1223 and died 11 December 1282. Llywelyn became sole ruler of Gwynedd Uwch Conwy ¨C an ancient land in northern Wales. Gwynedd Uwch Conwy meant ¡°Above The Conwy¡± river. The word Conwy in America would become Anglicized as Conway as in Conway, South Carolina where many Floyds would settle circa 1784.