When I first started getting into Genealogy, (I was young) I thought there were only 4 surnames that mattered. As we all know, that is not the case. A very strong surname on my dad's paternal side is the Lewallen's of Tennessee.
The first Lewallen that shows up after my gg-grandfather, Layton Young is Rhoda Ann Lewallen. She was Layton's mother and Matthew Young's wife. Sure I could just ignore the maternal side - and do research just on my surname of Young but what's the fun in that? I actually know many in the family, who do just that! They are not interested in the other branches of the family. Yet when my DNA came back, many of my relative connections came through our shared ancestry of Matthew Young and Rhoda Ann Lewallen. Just so happens, that Lewallen side goes and goes and goes back, very far whereas a generation later, I lose track of the Youngs.
Four generations back, the surname Lewallen changes spelling - Llewellyn. A welch personal name The name Lewis became closely associated with Llywelyn as early as the 13th century when Anglo-Norman scribes often used the former as an anglicized version of the latter; many Welsh families came to do the same over the following centuries as the adoption of formal English-style surnames became more widespread.
The name Llywelyn became popular following the successes of Llywelyn the Great (r. 1175-1240) but was largely absent among Welsh princes prior to him. Although Llywelyn was the most common form of the name in the medieval period, variant spellings started emerging even in the early Middle Ages, in particular, Llewelyn and Llewellyn, spellings that gave rise to a folk belief that the name was connected with lions (the Welsh word for lion being llew). This belief was further reinforced by Llywelyn the Great's adoption of his father Iorwerth ab Owain's coat of arms, incorporating four lions. The association also produced another early variant of the name, Leoline (based on Latin Leo), commonly used in Norman French and French manuscripts. In medieval Latin manuscripts, the form Lewelinus was used.
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