The Bliven Name

The Bliven name has been written with many variations. The Welsh spelling for Edward Bliven would have been, Ednywain Ap Bleddyn, in fact their was an Ednywain Ap Bleddyn who was born about 918 in Wales. He was the son of Bleddyn Ap Bletrus. Even in the 13th century the Bleddyn name was sometimes spelled alternately. The alternate spellings are not necessarily relations, but rather misspellings as the name was recorded on vital records such as census, birth, and death certificates. These misspellings, variations, and conjectures are reason to believe that our early Wales heritage, while being interesting to study, should not taken as fact and will likely never be absolutely proven. The variations or misspelling most common are listed below.

Possible variations of the Welsh name, Bleddyn:

• Blydden (very common variation to Bleddyn)
• Blethin (John Bliven is said to have used this spelling)
• Blethint
• Blythen
• Blethen
• Blifen (There's a tradition in our family that the name/spelling "Bliven" was chosen in America as a family pun. Bliven is the old spelling of modern Welch "blifen," which refers to a catapult, its builder or operator. The pun being that the Bliven brothers "catapulted" from Wales to America, supposedly to avoid trouble.)
• Blethyn (Pedigrees found in Glamorganshire, Wales)
• Blithian
• Blithin

Possible misspellings of the American name, Bliven:

• Bleavin
• Blevin (John Bliven is said to have sometimes used spelling)
• Blevins
• Blivens
• Blivin

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Blevins Family

Even though the Bliven name sometimes has been misspelled as Blevins, it appears that the Blevins are a southern family without direct links (at least to Edward Bliven in America). In early research, the Blevins name came into the colonies through VA and GA. That information came from research conducted at the LDS Genealogical library in Mesa, AZ.

1. Walter Blevins, wbj@kih.net
2. Robert Neill, rneill@lcs.net says that John Blevin arrived in Salem Massachusets about 1659.
3. Owen Blevins Family Database contains Blevins born in the early 1700's in Westerly RI.

   1.James BLEVINS born in around 1710 in Westerly RI.

   2.John (Jack) BLEVINS.born in around 1710 in Westerly RI.