“Ysbrid Arth Gwyn” is pidgin Welsh for Polar/White Bear Spirit. I had been dubbed “Arth Gwyn,” because I kinda resemble a polar bear, by a friend who was studying Welsh at UCLA way back in the day. But Welsh is tricky, and she got it wrong-- there are mutations and ‘Gwyn’ turns into ‘Wen’ sometimes. Oops. But I have answered to “Arth Gwyn” for so long that it still sticks. AND, it turns out that Arth Gwyn is correct in Cornish! So, cool.

When I took my AODA Druid name, I had just read an article about British Columbia’s Spirit Bears. These are ‘black bears’ with a rare mutation that causes the fur to be white. They seem really cool, and the conicidence of getting that magazine right when I was pondering a new name seemed like spirit was talking to me. So, I saw an opportunity to combine the old nickname with a new. “Spirit Bear” would be “Arth Ysbrid.” I kinda lumped it all together, so here we are.