Machen

Morphology: deriving from ma+chen
Phonetic: ma-ch-en

The word "ma" in Welsh is not often used in everyday speech but can be found in a number of place names as it means low lying ground, a plain or a wide, flat area. "Chen" may have originally come from the Welsh male name Cain or Cein. There are records of the place name in various forms dating back to 1101. The name Machen was originally used for what is now the settlement of Lower Machen but has moved up the valley as the area's housing slowly developed. A variation of the village name also appears in an early version of the name for Draethen, where that area was shown as Trayth Maghon in 1465. It also appears as Maughen in a map printed for a gentleman's periodical in London in 1765 – a series of articles were written and each showed a map for stages of a journey from London to St David's in Pembrokeshire.