Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 641

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 641

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/641

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked for a good Scottish name for a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, specifically, one that incorporates <Glen Etive> and is representative of the breed.

The Academy's focus is on European personal and place-names prior to the 17th century; we really haven't the resources to answer such a request. Normally we would simply recommend some references for Scottish names; you'll find some listed below. Since we've been slower than usual in responding, however, I've done a bit of browsing in a Gaelic dictionary [3] to see if I could turn up anything of interest.

It appears that one word that can be applied to this type of dog is <cu\-eunaidh> or <cu\-ian> 'pointer; spaniel; setter; retriever'. (The backslash stands for an accent grave over the previous vowel.) The second form, at least, would make a fairly simple name, e.g., <Cu-ian of Glen Etive>, or in Gaelic <Cu-ian Glinn E/ite>. (The slash stands for an acute accent over the previous vowel.) This is pronounced roughly \koo-EE-an glinn AITCH-eh\.

Extending my search to the general concept of hunting, I found <sealgair> 'hunter, huntsman'; the constellation Orion is in Gaelic <sealgair mór> 'great hunter'. Something similar could be done with this, though the connection with the specific breed would be lost. (<Sealgair> is pronounced roughly \SHAHL-garr\.)

Finally, there are many early Irish Gaelic men's names of the general form <Cú X> 'hound of X'. I don't know whether these survived into Scottish Gaelic usage, but they are at least part of the Gaelic tradition, and it occurred to me that <Cú Raghnaill> might be appropriate: it means 'Ronald's hound'. (It's pronounced roughly \koo RAH-nal\.)

For more traditional names associated with Scotland I will simply refer you to the references. I hope that the information is of some use even at this late date.

For the Academy,

Brian M. Scott


[1] Black, George F. The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History (New York: The New York Public Library, 1989).

[2] Dunkling, Leslie Alan. Scottish Christian Names (Stirling: Johnston and Bacon, 1988).

[3] Dwelly, Edward. The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary (Glasgow: Gairm Publications, 1988).

[4] A number of articles on Scottish personal naming and lists of Scottish personal names are available on the web at

http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/celtic.html