A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names

by Sharon L. Krossa

©1997 by Sharon L. Krossa. All rights reserved. Please get my permission before redistributing!

The information in this guide is taken from The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer, by Kenneth Jackson. The Book of Deer is a 9th century illuminated manuscript, written in Latin, of the Gospel of St. John and parts of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Book of Deer gets its name from six Gaelic "notes", and a Latin charter of David I, concerning grants of land to the monastery of Deer that were written into various blank spaces of the manuscript circa 1130 to 1150 AD. These notes are the earliest known examples of Gaelic written in Scotland. The Gaelic used in the notes is "Middle Gaelic", also called "Middle Irish", which was the form of Gaelic common to Ireland and parts of Scotland from, roughly, 900 to 1200 A.D. The names included in this guide from the Gaelic notes are those of people who lived in Scotland, primarily in the north east of Scotland, in the 11th and early 12th centuries.

This guide will show you how to construct a "typical" Scottish Gaelic name of this period. It gives you common structures and elements, but not an exhaustive list of all the possibilities. It is important to keep in mind, also, that not all 12th century Scots were Gaels, and thus a Scottish Gaelic name would not be appropriate for all Scottish personas/characters of this period. Another issue is that while this guide shows how to construct a "typical" Scottish Gaelic name, it was not actually "typical" in medieval Scotland for documents to be written in Gaelic, and thus while these forms of names probably reflect Scottish Gaelic names as they were spoken and used by Scottish Gaels, they do not reflect how they would have been written in most Scottish documents of the period, which were written in Latin. For a general discussion of Scottish names, including issues of spoken versus written forms, see my article Scottish Names 101.

Punctuation, Expansion, and Formating Conventions

In the original manuscript, the position of the accents was wholly meaningless (that is, they tended to appear where they didn't belong, such as over consonants, and also not to appear where they did belong, over long vowels). The accents given in the names in this article do not reflect the actual manuscript usage, but rather are editorial additions by Kenneth Jackson as found in The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer. The use of the hyphens is also a conventional editorial addition, again by Kenneth Jackson, unused in the manuscript, where such names generally appeared as a single word. In the manuscript, some of the names were abbreviated. In particular, it is worth noting that "mac" usually appeared in the abbreviated form "mc". The expanded versions are given here, also courtesy of Kenneth Jackson.

Forms in normal type are as found in the manuscript, except for the expansion of abbreviations and addition of punctuation. Forms in italics were not found in the manuscript, but are reconstructed standard forms.

The names found in the first Gaelic note are not included, because this note related the legendary founding of the monastery, and the names in it are those of legendary and historical figures from some half a millennium earlier, and thus not known to be names in current use in the 11th or 12th centuries. For example, "Colum Cille" was a name not used for anyone other than the saint himself. The names found in the Latin charter are included, but should be treated with caution, as some of them may not have been used by Gaels. (See notes as appropriate.) The Latin names are not included in the analysis of the frequency of byname types.

Pronunciation Guides

Pronunciation guides appear between backslash brackets, "\ \", and are intended to be read as if they were modern standard American English (except where noted) with the emphasis placed on the capitalized syllables.

Given Names

The names are arranged in alphabetical order under rough frequency categories. Because there were not that many separate individuals named in the Book of Deer's Gaelic notes, a proper statistical analysis is impossible. But some of the names were used for several individuals, and Jackson also gave indications of relative popularity for some names in his comments.

For each name, the first column gives the nominative case forms. The second column gives the genitive case forms, if any were used in the manuscript. The third column gives any other forms found, as well as relevant notes.

Women

Men

Name & Byname Structures

All examples of name & byname structures are actual name & byname combinations taken from the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer.

Women

Only two women are mentioned in the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer, one of them twice. In two out of the three instances, they are identified by a single given name followed by a single patronymic byname. In the third instance, the woman (who had been mentioned previously) is identified only by her patronymic byname. There are no examples of anyone with two given names (i.e., with a "middle" name). This is not surprising -- double given names are almost unheard of in Europe until the very late middle ages/renaissance, and even then only in certain naming cultures. In Scotland, if there were any instances at all, they remain vanishingly rare until after 1600.

Each woman's name & byname -- indicating who her father is -- is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> ingen <father's given name in genitive case & lenited>

"Ingen" means "daughter", and was pronounced in Middle Gaelic as, roughly, \EEN-yen\. "Lenited" means that certain grammatical changes are made to the first letter, changing its pronunciation. In some cases, these changes are shown in the spelling. In particular, "c" always becomes "ch", "t" always becomes "th", "f" always becomes either "f." (where "f." represents "f" with a dot, called a "punctum delens", written above it) or "fh", and "s" always becomes either "s." or "sh", "b" sometimes becomes "bh", "d" sometimes becomes "dh", "g" sometimes becomes "gh", "m" sometimes becomes "mh", and "p" sometimes becomes "ph". The changes to "l", "n", and "r" are never shown in the spelling.

No examples of women with metronymic bynames were found, that is, with a byname indicating who a woman's mother is. There are currently no known examples of metronymic bynames used in Gaelic Scotland at any time in the middle ages.

Men

The most typical overall structure for a man's name & byname in the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer is a single given name followed by a single byname, accounting for thirty-eight of the forty-seven examples in the Gaelic notes. For six of the names, some of them for individuals who had already been mentioned earlier in the notes, a single given name is used with no byname at all. In only three instances is a man identified by a single given name followed by two bynames.

There are no examples of anyone with two given names (i.e., with a "middle" name). This is not surprising -- double given names are almost unheard of in Europe until the very late middle ages/renaissance, and even then only in certain naming cultures. In Scotland, if there were any instances at all, they remain vanishingly rare until after 1600.

Patronymic Bynames

A patronymic byname is by far the most common type of byname for a man in the Gaelic notes, used in twenty-nine of the examples with a single byname, and in all of the three examples with two bynames.

No examples of men with metronymic bynames were found, that is, with a byname indicating who a man's mother is. There are currently no known examples of metronymic bynames used in Gaelic Scotland at any time in the middle ages.

Single Patronymic Byname

The basic name & single patronymic byname -- indicating who his father is -- is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> mac <father's given name in genitive case>

"Mac" means "son", and was pronounced in Middle Gaelic as \mack\.

Double Patronymic Byname

There is one instance of a two generation patronymic byname for a man -- indicating who his father and grandfather are. This type of name & byname is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> mac <father's given name in genitive case> mec <father's father's given name in genitive case>

"Mac" means "son", and was pronounced in Middle Gaelic as \mack\. "Mec" is the genitive form of "mac" and means "of son". It was pronounced in 12th century Gaelic as, roughly, \veck\.

Single Patronymic Byname plus Noble Office/Title Byname

In both of the other instances using two bynames, the first byname is a patronym and the second is a particular kind of noble office/title indicating leadership of a named noble kindred. Since there are no other examples of this particular type of noble office/title byname, it will be described here.

This type of name & byname is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> mac <father's given name in genitive case> toísech clainne <the given name of the eponymous ancestor of the noble kindred/clan in genitive case>

"{oe}" represents the single letter that is made by an "o" and an "e" linked together (similar to how an "a" and an "e" link together to form "æ"). "Mac" means "son", and was pronounced in Middle Gaelic as \mack\. "Toísech" means "leader, chief", and was probably pronounced in 12th century Gaelic as, roughly, \T*-shehkh\, where \*\ represents a vowel sound not found in English that is like an \oh\ sound, as in English "Oh no!", but said with the lips unrounded, almost smiling, rather than with rounded lips as normal, and where \kh\ represents the sound found in German "ach" and Scottish "loch" -- a sort of \k\ that you hiss through. "Clainne" is the genitive form of "clann" and means "of the noble kindred, the ruling family-group descended from a common ancestor". It was pronounced in Middle Gaelic as, roughly, \KLAHN-yeh\.

Religious Office Bynames

Five men mentioned in the Gaelic notes held religious office -- two bishops ("escob"), two abbots ("ab", "abb"), and one lector ("fer léginn"). These men appear identified with a single given name and a single byname indicating their office.

This type of name & byname is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> <office in nominative case> <place where office held in genitive case>

Noble Office/Title Bynames

Four men in the Gaelic notes are identified with a byname indicating their noble office/title. Two of these have already been discussed (see above). The remaining two were mormaers and appear identified with a single given name and a single byname indicating the place of which they were mormaer. "Mormaer" is not easily defined, but the closest English noble title/office to it is probably that of earl. Like earl, mormaer appears as "comes" in Latin documents.

This type of name & byname is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> [in] mormaer <place of which mormaer in genitive case>

"Mormaer" was probably pronounced in 12th century Gaelic as, very roughly, \MORE-vahr\ or \MORE-eh-vahr\. "In mormaer" means "the mormaer". It was more normal to use "mormaer" rather than "in mormaer" in bynames.

Occupational Bynames

This type of name & byname is set up as follows:

<given name in nominative case> <occupation in nominative case>

Bibliography

Jackson, Kenneth, The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).