Author Topic: GULLON - Spanish ?  (Read 10312 times)

Offline tenspar

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #9 on: Monday 09 October 06 17:36 BST (UK) »
Hi Karla

Thanks for that information. It seems more and more likely that Gullon does originate from Spain. I have noticed that a lot of spanish and mediterranean names begin with GUL ?
We have tracked my husbands ancestors back to Fife in Scotland and have discovered that some of the ships of the Spanish Armada were given haven there. I bet some of the sailors jumped ship and settled in Scotland ? Apparently there are lots of Spanish surnames in that part of Scotland. Fascinating !!!!! I'd love to find some Spanish relatives but I suppose thats just a pipe dream !

Regards to your family - we might even be related ?!?

Mary :)

Offline trishmac

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #10 on: Tuesday 31 October 06 20:15 GMT (UK) »
Hello Mary

Try this site: www.spatial-literacy.org and click on 'search for a surname' to see the distribution of Gullons in 1881 and 1998.

Don't want to be a wet blanket re the Armada theory, but if everyone in Scotland (especially the North-east, where I come from) who think an ancestor was a shipwrecked sailor from the Armada is right, there would have been nobody left in Spain! ;D I think I'm right in saying that the big shipwreck happened when they hit bad weather off the coast of Ireland.

What about trade? Any reason why Spanish people would to-and-fro, and eventually settle in Fife?

Trish
Smith, Whitecross, Watson, Gibson, Thom, Jamieson, Sangster, Johnston, Reid, Robertson, Fidler, Arthur - mainly in Slains and Cruden. Park in Peterhead.
Mutch in Ellon/Belhelvie/Foveran. Robertson, Forbes in Ellon.  Shivas in Ellon/Old Deer. Allan in Old Machar. Keith, Ironside in Old Deer. McKenzie , Brownie in Skene. Watson, Milne in Monquhitter/Lonmay. Shepherd in Belhelvie/Tarves.

Offline tenspar

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #11 on: Saturday 04 November 06 15:46 GMT (UK) »
Hi Trish
Thanks for the website it was interesting - 3 names per million are Gullon !
Don't know what to think about the Armada ? Guess it is a romantic thought  :)
Don't suppose I'll ever know ???
Mary

Offline trishmac

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #12 on: Sunday 05 November 06 17:52 GMT (UK) »
Well, Mary, if you can't be 'one in a million', three in a million ain't bad! ;D

Trish
Smith, Whitecross, Watson, Gibson, Thom, Jamieson, Sangster, Johnston, Reid, Robertson, Fidler, Arthur - mainly in Slains and Cruden. Park in Peterhead.
Mutch in Ellon/Belhelvie/Foveran. Robertson, Forbes in Ellon.  Shivas in Ellon/Old Deer. Allan in Old Machar. Keith, Ironside in Old Deer. McKenzie , Brownie in Skene. Watson, Milne in Monquhitter/Lonmay. Shepherd in Belhelvie/Tarves.


Offline hdw

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #13 on: Friday 15 May 15 15:39 BST (UK) »
Hello Mary

Try this site: www.spatial-literacy.org and click on 'search for a surname' to see the distribution of Gullons in 1881 and 1998.

Don't want to be a wet blanket re the Armada theory, but if everyone in Scotland (especially the North-east, where I come from) who think an ancestor was a shipwrecked sailor from the Armada is right, there would have been nobody left in Spain! ;D I think I'm right in saying that the big shipwreck happened when they hit bad weather off the coast of Ireland.

What about trade? Any reason why Spanish people would to-and-fro, and eventually settle in Fife?

Trish

Well said, Trish. This Armada story is one of those urban myths that won't lie down and die. If you read 19th c. histories of fishing towns on the east coast of Scotland, they nearly all have a founding myth of this kind. The people of Buckhaven in Fife are supposed to be Danish, for one. The fact is that at various periods in the past, some of the crofter-fishermen in the coastal parishes decided to concentrate on the fishing and give up farming. In my native parish of Kilrenny in Fife, the laird John Beaton of Balfour built the harbour of Skinfasthaven in the 1540s and the fishing village of Silverdyke or Cellardyke grew up around it. The surnames of the fishing population are also found among the landward population, but obviously through time the fisherfolk became so distinctive in their lifestyle, dialect, etc. that they came to be seen as foreign interlopers.
   There is no question that ships of the Spanish Armada were wrecked off Scotland and the Diary of James Melville, the minister of Anstruther Easter, describes how some Spanish sailors were looked after by the people of that particular Fife town before being sent on their way, but there is absolutely no evidence of any of these foreign sailors being encouraged to stay in Scotland and settle there. Apart from anything else, the fact that they were Catholics in newly-Presbyterian Scotland would have counted against them. Where a supposedly Spanish name crops up, there is usually a boring explanation for it; e.g. it used to be said that the Gosman family of the Anstruther/Kilrenny area were descended from a Spanish Guzmán, but Gosman or 'Goose man' is an old Scottish and English surname found here long before the Spanish Armada was ever thought of.

Harry

Offline DonM

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #14 on: Friday 15 May 15 16:41 BST (UK) »
Gullon/Gullion/Gullian and other variations I think you will find they were out of the Orkney's as there were several families there during the 19th and 18th C (and likely earlier).  I have seen some family trees with individuals who have moved south, through Fife and Perth and even England but can not attest to their accuracy.  The ones in my line stayed close to home (Shapisay).

They could have originated in Spain but they do carry a known Gaelic name found in Ireland and Scotland.

Don
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Offline hdw

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #15 on: Friday 15 May 15 16:52 BST (UK) »
There were people called Guillan in my home town in Fife. Until fairly recently spelling was quite haphazard, then people became fixated on a particular spelling and stuck to it, so on the face of it Gullan, Guillan, Gollan etc. look like different names, but may all come from the same source.

Funnily enough there is a correspondence in the "Scotsman" at the moment about the "correct" pronunciation of the town of Gullane in East Lothian. Some insist it should be "Gillan" (with a hard g), others think this is pretentious.

Harry

Offline tenspar

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #16 on: Friday 15 May 15 18:39 BST (UK) »
Hi everyone
Well it seems that Gullon is definitely a Scottish name. My husband will be disappointed ha ha. He's just a romantic at heart ;D
I too had found evidence of Gullons in Orkney. The one thing that has always intrigued me is how few of us there are in the world. The vast majority are in Europe, France and Spain.
I also found a town called Gullon in Sweden I think ?
Anyway I think it's a lovely unusual name and I'm very happy to have received it through marriage.
Thanks for all your posts  :)
Mary

Offline Erin2012

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Re: GULLON - Spanish ?
« Reply #17 on: Friday 15 May 15 18:50 BST (UK) »
Sorry to hear that!

Its funny how the same word exists in two different countries... The word for free is the same in Norwegian and Spanish: "gratis"....

Keane (Westmeath)
Ledwith (Longford/Westmeath)
Gray (Sligo)
Eustace (Louth)
Frost (Suffolk)
Farrar (Yorkshire)
La Favor/Lefebvre (Quebec)
Mineard/Maynard/Mainard/ Maynord (Wiltshire/Monmouthshire)