Bowen
also ab Owen, ap Owain
Son of Owen — the patronymic of the great Welsh princely name.
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Bowen
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Bowen.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →What does the Bowen name mean?
From ab Owen — son of Owain (or Owen). Owain was one of the most prestigious personal names in mediaeval Welsh use, carried by Owain Glyndŵr (c.1359–c.1415), Owain Gwynedd (1100–1170), and several other princely figures. The patronymic ab Owen compressed into Bowen under Tudor naming policy — the b retained from ab and the apostrophe-O dropped. Bowen is overwhelmingly Welsh, with the densest concentrations in Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.
The history of Bowen
The personal name Owain produced both Owen and Bowen as modern surnames — Owen from the simple patronymic 'son of Owen', and Bowen from the contracted ab Owen. The two surnames are in effect siblings, with Bowen densest in the southern Welsh counties (Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire) where the contracted form was more current at the time of Tudor surname compression. The diaspora carried Bowen heavily into the Welsh-American communities of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and into the southern Australian gold-rush districts of Ballarat and Bendigo.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973), the Anglo-Irish novelist of The Death of the Heart and The Heat of the Day, was descended from a Pembrokeshire-Bowen line that had emigrated to Co. Cork in the 17th century — Bowen's Court at Farahy was the ancestral seat. Jim Bowen (1937–2018), the Lancashire-born comedian who hosted Bullseye for 14 years on ITV, was of Welsh-Bowen ancestry. Roger Bowen (1932–1996), the American actor of M*A*S*H, was Welsh-American on his paternal side.
Notable bearers of the Bowen name
- Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) — novelist (The Death of the Heart, The Heat of the Day)
- Jim Bowen (1937–2018) — comedian, host of Bullseye
- Roger Bowen (1932–1996) — actor (M*A*S*H film, Lt Col Henry Blake)
Frequently asked
What does the surname Bowen mean?
Where does the Bowen family come from?
Who are some famous Bowens?
Is ab Owen the same family as Bowen?
Neighbouring clans
- JonesSon of John — and roughly one in twenty Welsh-descended people in the world.
- DaviesSon of David — born of the patron saint's name and densest in his own corner of Wales.
- ThomasThe fifth Welsh surname — son of Thomas, on the same Tudor-era road as Jones and Williams.
- ReesFrom Rhys — the name of the most consequential prince of 12th-century Wales.