Scottish Island Surnames

Two Island Heritages: Gaelic and Norse

Scotland's islands fall into two distinct cultural zones. The Hebrides — the long chain of islands off the west coast — are Gaelic in language and clan in social organisation, part of the same cultural world as the Highland mainland. Orkney and Shetland — the northern archipelagos — are Norse in origin, their surnames and place names deriving from the Old Norse language brought by Viking settlers in the 9th century. These two island worlds have almost nothing in common except geography.

The Hebrides: Gaelic Island Surnames

The Outer Hebrides (Lewis, Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Barra) were the last stronghold of Scottish Gaelic. In Lewis, Gaelic was the daily language of most of the population until the late 20th century. The surnames here are among the most Gaelic in Scotland:

MacLeod

The Lords of Lewis and Skye. The two main branches — MacLeod of Dunvegan (Skye) and MacLeod of Lewis — both claim descent from Leòd, a son of Olaf the Black, the Viking King of Man and the Isles. The surname is thus paradoxically Norse in origin (Ljótr) despite being one of the most distinctively Gaelic-speaking families in Scotland.

Morrison

One of the most common surnames in Lewis. The Morrisons were traditionally the hereditary brieve (judge) of Lewis — the Britheamh — a semi-legal role that gave them special status in Hebridean society. The name may derive from the Gaelic Muirgheal (sea-bright) or from a Norse personal name.

MacAulay

From the Old Norse Ólafr (through Gaelic Amhalgaidh). The MacAulays of Lewis were a distinct family from the MacAulays of Ardincaple on the mainland. The historian and essayist Thomas Babington Macaulay bore this surname.

Orkney and Shetland: Norse Island Surnames

Orkney and Shetland were Norwegian territory until 1468, when they were pledged to Scotland as a dowry payment by the Danish crown and never redeemed. The native language — Norn, a form of Old Norse — survived in Orkney until the 18th century and in Shetland slightly later. It has now disappeared, but its legacy lives in the place names and personal names of the islands.

Orkney surnames

Orkney surnames are distinctive and often have no equivalent anywhere else in Scotland:

• Isbister — from the Old Norse íss-bólstaðr (ice farmstead), a place name in Orkney
• Linklater — from the Norse hlyn (maple) + klettr (cliff)
• Marwick — from the Norse place name Mýrr-vík (bog bay)
• Flett — possibly from the Norse fljótr (swift) or a farmstead name
• Groundwater — an English translation of a Norse place name
• Hourston — from a Norse farmstead name (Hrafns-tún, Raven's farm)

Shetland surnames

Shetland's Norse heritage is even more pronounced than Orkney's. The annual Up Helly Aa fire festival — in which a replica Viking longship is burned — celebrates this heritage. Shetland surnames include:

• Tulloch — from the Gaelic tulach (hillock), showing the Gaelic overlay on Norse Shetland
• Wishart — a Norman surname brought to Scotland via the church; shows the complexity of Shetland's history
• Rendall — from the Norse personal name Ragnvaldr

The Sinclair Earls of Orkney

The Sinclair family — Earls of Orkney from 1379 to 1470 — bear one of the most famous surnames in Scotland. The name derives from Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in Normandy; they came to Scotland with David I. Henry Sinclair, the third earl, is credited in some traditions with a voyage to North America in 1398 — a century before Columbus — based on circumstantial evidence including a stone carving at Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh. Whether this voyage occurred is disputed, but the Sinclairs' connection to Orkney, and through Orkney to the Norse world, is a documented fact.