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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Topic started by: aberdein on Sunday 07 November 10 11:51 GMT (UK)
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As most of my ancestors were scottish I have spent many hours looking through scottish names. I have never come across a Fiona or Rory or Callum. The girls are Elizabeth or Margaret and the boy James or Alexander those sort of traditional names. So when did Fiona appear?
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Apparently it was the pen name of a 19th century author, William Sharp. Some of his work was based on Celtic folklore.
Nell
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Yes I read somewhere that Fiona was invented in the 1890s, by William Sharp. It sounds archetypically Scottish and you would expect it to go back hundreds of years. But it doesn't.
I think the more common alternative (in the 18th century) for Callum is Malcolm. (Callum might be the vocative case, like Hamish is of Seamus).
Roderick might be the more common version for Rory.
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Fiona was a name invented by William Sharp (d1905) for a literary personality - he probably derived it from the Gaelic fionn - meaning fair. It only became common in the mid 20 th century. Rory is another modern usage for the Gailic name Ruaidhri - this normally appears in records as Roderick. Callum is the same as Colum or Colm - a Gaelic rendering of the latin name Columba (dove) the name of the saint who converted parts of Scotland to Christianity. A more common name is Malcolm - meaning "servant of Columba"
Steve
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Thanks everyone for clearing that up for me. A scottish female name I have two or three times in my family is Grizel. Any help with that one? I also have several Smellies which seems a rather strange name.
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Grizel is common enough. I think the modern version is Grizelda, and it's an alternative version of Grace.
Smellie is also a pretty common surname. Many a Glasgow schoolboy used to ring up Smellies with prank phone calls when I was younger. How funny - not!
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According to Wikipedia, Fiona is a bit earlier - 1760ish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona
Still, nitpicking aside, I did not know that it was just invented like that!
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Grizel is common enough. I think the modern version is Grizelda, and it's an alternative version of Grace.
Grizel is a name of Germanic origin, a version of the much older form Griselda, and in Scotland it also occurs as Girsel. Grace is just that; the English word Grace, but it was used as a synonym for Grizel in Scotland.
See http://www.whatsinaname.net/php/search.php?action=search2&search_name=grizel for further details.