The name has been related to several women saints recorded elsewhere. The element edan is similar to Etáin, a name occurring once in the 15th century in Scotland, and argued as the virgin saint of Tumna near Boyle in County Roscommon in the diocese of Elphin - though another authority derives Cill Medoin in the diocese of Tuam not from an apocryphal saint Etáin but prosaically from the Irish for middle church. Again, the name may be a version of Modwena (Moninne or Darerca), who was abbess of Cill Sléibe Cuilinn in Killevy near Slieve Gullion and died on 5 July 517 or 519; it is said that she founded a number of churches in Scotland. There is a 1901 dedication to a female St Medan in Troon in Ayrshire.