Forest of Dean question

[geoff_bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:

zanooda:
> Does anyone know (Geoff?) where the name "Forest of Dean" comes from? I read that there are villages in the area with the name of "Dean" - West Dean, Little Dean etc. Is it because of them that the forest is called like this? I also remember reading somewhere that in this case "dean" comes from a word "dene" - "valley", I wonder if this is true, and if not, what else can the word "dean" mean here. I don't intend to translate "dean", I just need to decide what is the best way to call the name of this place in another language :-). Thanks,

Geoff:
There are only three settlement names in the Forest using the name "Dean" - 
Littledean (all one word), Ruardean and Ruardean Woodside. The latter 
name means "enclosure by a hill". West Dean is not in the area - there are 
two West Deans, one in Wiltshire and the other in Sussex.

I cannot find any other notes on the etymology of the forest name. It is an 
old forest and was at one time one of the Royal Forests, retained for hunting.

Quite frankly, if you are translating some text into another language, I would 
leave a name like this as it is. After all, most foreign place names are not 
translated into English