Personal Names and Naming Practices in Medieval Scotland

Personal names can provide a rich and often overlooked window into medieval society, and Scotland's diversity of languages over the course of the Middle Ages makes it an ideal case study. This book offers a range of new methodological approaches to anthroponymy, covering Gaelic, Scandinavian and other Germanic names, as well as names drawn from the Bible, the saints, and secular literature.Individual case studies include a comparison of naming in early medieval Scottish and Irish chronicles; an authoritative taxonomy of Gaelic names drawn from twelfth and thirteenth-century charters; a revolutionary new analysis of the emergence of surnames in Ireland, with implications for Scottish history; a complete linguistic discussion of the masculine Germanic names in the 1296 Ragman Roll; a detailed local case study of saints. names in Argyll which bears on place-names as well; and an examination of the adoption of Hebrew Old Testament names in central medieval Scotland.Dr MATTHEW HAMMOND is a Research Associate at Kings College London.Contributors: Rachel Butter, Thomas Owen Clancy, John Reuben Davies, Valeria Di Clemente, Nicholas Evans, Matthew Hammond, Roibeard O Maolalaigh, David Sellar, Tom Turpie.