sentences:  Old Testament names were common in Wales at the time, but it has been suggested that this name may have been adopted at the time Asser entered the church.Asser may have been familiar with a work by St Jerome on the meaning of Hebrew names (Jerome's given meaning for "Asser" was "blessed"), so it is possible that Asser's birth name was "Gwyn" (or "Guinn"), which is Welsh for "blessed" (or "blessedness").According to his "Life of King Alfred", Asser was a monk at St David's in what was then the kingdom of Dyfed, in south-west Wales.