Gaelic surname changes | Anthroponymy | Forum

Hi,

Probably the best resource for Scottish surnames in general is George Black's 'The Surnames of Scotland'. This gives a lot of Gaelic forms. Some Gaelic dictionaries give personal and sur-names as an appendix, such as Mark and Dwelly. http://www.faclair.info has some of this info on it's site. The problem with a simple list like these give you is that it implies one ScEng name always reflects the same underlying Gaelic form, when there is of course often regional variation, so be wary about accepting these as being always authentic.

I hope that helps a bit.

Jake

maxwellsharp said

Hi All!
I'm new to the site, and although I am a lecturer in English at a university in Germany, onomastics is, at least right now, an amateur passion! (My 'professional' subject is drama, by the way!). I was wondering if anyone knew of any decent sources for the anglicization of Gaelic surnames in Scotland? I stumbled over this during family research, but have become more and more interested in the whole historical process...in my family, western Aysrhire, a lot of the names seeemed connected to saints' names (e.g. Mac Ghill Chiaran). Hope you can all put up with the no doubt naive meanderings of an onomastics 'newbie'!
Regards,
Jonathan