Surnames reveal so much about our family history
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Have you heard about the dentists named Mr Nash and Mr Fang? Or the policeman Robin Banks? These are amusing coincidences but, in days gone by, a surname really did tell something about a person or family.
Names like Taylor, Cook and Miller point to distant ancestors who did these jobs, usually successive generations working at the family occupation. Did you know that Baxter originally meant a female baker and Webster meant a weaver?
The old form of Bremner was Brabener, which meant a native of the Brabant, the Low Countries of the continent of Europe. The Brabeners who first settled in 15th century Scotland were weavers. Older Caithness folk pronounced Bremner as Brebner, which sounds very close to the original.
The descriptive surname Begg is an anglicisation of beag and More of mor, the Gaelic words for small and big respectively. Bain comes from ban, meaning fair, and Roy from ruadh, meaning red-haired. Macintyre means son of the carpenter and Macintosh son of the leader.
Gunn, and the Leod part of the name Macleod, are shortened forms of Norse names.
Some surnames found in Caithness came here with Borders shepherds and sheep-farm managers. Examples are Armstrong, Oliver, Borthwick, Hymers, Waugh, Telford, Telfer and Paterson.
The Brabeners who first settled in 15th century Scotland were weavers.
Fixed surnames came across the English Channel with the Normans (1066 and all that!). This custom reached Scotland just over 100 years later when their descendants were given land here. The Sinclairs originated in St Clare, Normandy. The de Brus family name became Bruce. The derivation of Grant is the French word grand, meaning big, and the name was originally Le Grand.
Within a few hundred years, Scottish noblemen and landowners were called after the lands they owned. The surname Wares is derived from Warse, near Canisbay, and Coghill from Cogle, Watten.
Gradually, it became useful for ordinary people to have a surname for identification purposes, although in some parts of the Highlands it was not the norm until the 18th century.
Warning! Although your surname may be that of a Scottish clan, it may not be your bloodline. People often took the name of a clan chief or landowner, in order to have his protection. But don’t let that stop you from wearing the tartan you have always done!
The MacGregor clan was accused, rightly or wrongly, of various offences and their surname was proscribed by an Act of Parliament in 1603. Many MacGregors took the surnames Stewart, Dougall, Ramsay, Grant or Cunninghame but there is a long list of other surnames which they chose.
When the proscription was lifted, some MacGregors reverted to their original name, but others did not, which means that there are many folk today who are descended from the MacGregors but do not know it.
The Budges, who settled at Toftingall, Watten, in the late 15th century, are said to have been MacDonalds who fled here and changed their names, but the reason is unknown.
In past times there was no standard spelling for anything, including names. Alexander can be found as Alscherson and Lyall as Lyal, Lyel and Lyell. White was written as Quhit or variations of that!
When searching online genealogy sites, it is useful to know the variations in spelling of surnames. The definitive work on Scottish surnames is The Surnames of Scotland by George F Black, PhD (1946). This was reprinted by Birlinn in 2007.
To contact Caithness Family History Society, email enquiries@caithnessfhs.co.uk or use Facebook.
