Question

I am finding Verch in both male and female names. Is this a middle name or a connector like VanDer or Fitz?

Answer 1

Wikipedia has a basic article about how Welsh patronymic naming works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_surnames

and more information from Welshleigh.org: http://www.welshleigh.org/genealogy/welshnames.html

WikiTree's style guide says to use the name/spelling the person in question would have used, so "Ferch" would be considered more proper than "Verch" because ferch is the original Welsh spelling. In Welsh, a single "F" is pronounced like a "V", so English speakers may have written it as "Verch." (To get an "eff" sound in Welsh, "FF" is used.)

As for women with "ap" in their names, it seems like there was a period of change and adjustment in Welsh surnames (names like ap Rhys becoming Price and so on), so the best thing to do for these is to double check primary sources or do more research into what the style for names was within her lifetime.

Answer 2

"Verch" and "ferch" are both Welsh for "daughter of" and probably shouldn't be in male names! (There are always exceptions, but male verches and ferches should be checked with skepticism. I suspect that a lot of them come from genealogy software that automatically picks a surname.) The male version is "ap" for "(son) of."