Baragwanath
Encyclopedia
Baragwanath is a Cornish language
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

 surname originating in west Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 in the UK. As a result of emigration members of the Baragwanath family can now be found in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

, Gauteng, is a hospital whose name derives from a local storekeeper, John Albert Baragwanath: the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the second largest hospital in the world after West China hospital of Medical Sciences, Sichuan University, occupying , with 3 200 beds and 6 760 staff members. The hospital is in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, South Africa...

, Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...

. This hospital is generally considered to be the largest in the southern hemisphere.

Variants of the name are Baragwaneth and Baragwanoth; the meaning of bara gwaneth is wheaten bread (though Charnock prefers bar gwaneth, the top of the wheat field). It is particularly common in Penwith
Penwith
Penwith was a local government district in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, whose council was based in Penzance. The district covered all of the Penwith peninsula, the toe-like promontory of land at the western end of Cornwall and which included an area of land to the east that fell outside the...

 and is recorded as early as the year 1590 (John Baragwanath 1590 to 1660 Married to Eleanor Baragwanath survived by their 8 children, John, Emblem, Elizabeth, Catherine, Joan, Mary, Jane & Richard.)

Baragwanath is often confused as having Indian heritage as it can be loosely translated to "Glorious owner" or "Owner of Glory" in Hindi, or Welsh heritage possibly because of a mistaken association with 'Bara Brith' or 'speckled bread' a traditional Welsh fruit bread.

In Australia the Baragwanath Transform and the fossil plant Baragwanathia
Baragwanathia
Baragwanathia is a genus of extinct plants of the division Lycopodiophyta of Late Silurian to Early Devonian age , fossils of which have been found in Australia, Canada and China.-Description:...

were named after the geologist William Baragwanath (d. 1966).

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