The English name “Wales” originates from the Germanic word Walha, meaning “foreigner,” probably derived from the term Volcae. The term also appears in the “-wall” of Cornwall. The Welsh call their country Cymru in the Welsh language, which most likely meant “compatriots” in Old Welsh.The name competed for a long time in Welsh literature with the older name Brythoniaid (Brythons).
Only after 1100 did the former become as common as the latter; both terms applied originally not only to the inhabitants of what is now called Wales, but in general to speakers of the Brythonic language and its descendants, many of whom lived in “the Old North”: the placenames Cymru (Welsh for Wales) and Cumbria are of the same origin.[10] The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were known indiscriminately as Saeson in Welsh (the term is cognate with “Saxon”; compare Gaelic Sassenach); Sais, plural Saeson, is the modern Welsh word for “Englishman.”
