ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1622 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1622 ************************************ 25 Apr 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether "Colin, red-haired cat from the forest", is an appropriate name for a Scottish Gael in our period. Here is what we have found. is probably a modern Gaelic spelling of a name that appears in a Scottish Gaelic document in 1467 as [1]. That spelling is appropriate for the last three centuries of our period. The name was pronounced roughly \KAHL-in\. Unfortunately, the rest of the name you asked about isn't the type of name that was used in Gaelic in our period. The Gaels did use descriptive nicknames, but they tended to be fairly simple and straightforward: small, big, red, black. A red-haired man named might have been called . We found no example of the name of an animal used as a nickname in period Gaelic. Gaelic names very rarely include surnames based on the name where a man lived. While a surname like "of the forest" would have been unremarkable in English or French, it is not a name that the average Gael would have used in our period. Chieftains and their close relatives and some clerics used locative surnames, but they were undoubtedly special cases. A Highland man of our period was almost always identified as his father's son. For example, Cailean son of Domhnall mac Aodha would have been called "Cailean Domhnall's son". You can find more information about the construction of Scottish Gaelic names on the web. If you haven't read it yet, you could start with Scottish Names 101 http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/scotnames101.html Other useful articles are: Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/ A Simple Guide to Constructing 12th Century Scottish Gaelic Names http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/simplescotgaelicnames12.html We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 25 Apr 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Skene, William F., "Genealogies of the Highland Clans, Extracted from Ancient Gaelic MSS.: 1. Gaelic MS. Written circa A.D. 1450, with a Translation,", pp 50-62, and "Genealogies of the Highland Clans, Extracted from Ancient Gaelic MSS.: 2. Gaelic MS. Written circa A.D. 1450, continued," pp. 357-60, _Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis consisting of Original Papers and Documents Relating to the History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_, ed. The Iona Club (Edinburgh: Thomas G. Stevenson, 1847)