Sannan

Sannan most likely derives from the Latin sanctus, meaning holy, sacred, or saintly, which entered early Welsh usage through the Christian church during the post-Roman period of the 5th and 6th centuries. Many Welsh saint's names from this period reflect the intense Christianisation of Wales following the departure of Roman administration, and names derived from Latin ecclesiastical vocabulary were common among the early saints. The double-N spelling reflects standard Welsh orthographic conventions, where nn indicates a short vowel in the preceding syllable.

Wales developed one of the richest traditions of local saints' cults in the Christian world, with hundreds of early medieval holy men and women being venerated at parish churches across the country. Saint Sannan represents this deeply localised form of Welsh Christianity, where each community often had its own patron saint whose life and miracles were part of the fabric of local identity. The parish of Bedwellty, in the coalfield valleys of what is now Caerphilly, maintained its dedication to Sannan through the centuries. Names of this type, preserved almost exclusively in church dedications and hagiographic texts, have a unique archaeological quality, connecting a modern child directly to the earliest layers of Welsh Christian culture. The name would be a genuinely extraordinary choice today, known to virtually no one outside Welsh historical scholarship.