Talk by Dr. Alan Macniven:
Evening: 5:30pm, CSCS Seminar
‘What’s in a Name? Norse Naming Strategies in the Hebrides’
Communities of Norse speakers arriving in the Inner Hebrides during the Viking Age would have had two main choices when it came to naming their new environment. They could either adopt existing names, or create new ones. These two over-arching strategies can, moreover, be further broken down into a number of sub-categories. By looking more closely at the nature of the adopted and new material, it is possible to draw some intriguing conclusions on the nature of the Norse-native interface. This talk will explore the evidence for and import of naming strategies in the Norse settlement of Islay.