Cambria is the classical name for Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, being the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

ised form of the Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 name Cymru (Wales). The etymology of Cymry "the Welsh", Cimbri

Cimbri

The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...

, and Cwmry "Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

", improbably connected to the Biblical Gomer

Gomer

Gomer was the son of Japheth in the Hebrew Bible.Gomer may also refer to:*Gomer *GOMER , in medical slang, an undesirable patient*Gomer Press, a printing and publishing company in Wales...

 and the "Cimmerians

Cimmerians

The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...

" by 17th-century celticists, is now known to come from Old Welsh combrog "compatriot; Welshman", from the root *brogi "country"; "territory" (cf. Welsh, Cornish

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...

, Breton

Breton language

Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...

 bro "territory"; "country"), itself from *mrogi (cf. Old Irish mruig, gen. mroga "country"), deriving from an old Brythonic

Brythonic languages

The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...

 word *com-brogi or Proto-Brythonic *kom-brogos, meaning "fellow countryman"; "compatriots", (as a result of the struggle with the Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

) possibly therefore related to its sister language Breton's keñvroad, keñvroiz, "comrade", "compatriot".

Cambria in legend

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

 in the first part of his pseudohistory

Pseudohistory

Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...

 Historia Regum Britanniae

Historia Regum Britanniae

The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation...

, the Trojan

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

 Brutus

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

 had three sons among whom (having subdued Gogmagog) he divided his lands after landing in Britain. His elder son, Locrinus

Locrinus

Locrinus was a legendary king of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was the oldest son of Brutus and a descendant of the Trojans through Aeneas. Following Brutus's death, Britain was divided amongst the three sons, with Locrinus receiving the portion roughly equivalent to...

, received the land between the rivers Humber

Humber

The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

 and Severn

River Severn

The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

, which he called Loegria (a Latinization of the Welsh name Lloegr, "England"). His second son, Albanactus

Albanactus

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Albanactus was the founding king of Albania or Albany. He was the youngest of three sons of Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas of Troy. According to legend, upon their father's death, the eldest son Locrinus was given Loegria, Camber was given Cambria and Albanactus...

, got the lands beyond the Humber, which took from him the name of Alba

Alba

Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...

ny (Yr Alban in Welsh: Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

). The younger son, Camber, was bequeathed everything beyond the Severn, which was called after him "Cambria".

This legend was widely prevalent throughout the 12th-16th centuries.

Legacy

The name "Cambria" lives on in much contemporary literature. It is also used in geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 to denote the geologic period between around 542 million years and 488.3 million years ago; in 1835 the geologist Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...

 named this geological period the Cambrian

Cambrian

The Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...

, after studying rocks of that age in Wales.

It is also a rare female name.