History of Christian names

Section I.—Scottish Colonists.

The strange and wild beliefs that prevailed regarding the original settlement of ancient Ireland, have left strong traces on the names still borne by the population, both there and in Scotland.

We need not go back quite to Adam’s great-grandson, and the wicked race that sprang from him, and all perished, except one giant, who took up his abode in a cave, and there lived till he was baptized by St. Patrick; nor to Fintan, who was changed into a salmon during the time that the flood prevailed, and afterwards gave rise to the proverb, “I could tell you many things were I as old as Fintan.” A bard, so called, was said to have existed, and a poem is attributed to him, which gives a very queer account of the first settlers, though he does not there claim quite such a startling experience.

Fomorians, Fir Bolg, men dwelling in caves, or, more probably, ravaging men, and Tuath De Danan, i.e. chiefs, priests, and bards, are all conducted in turn to Erin by tradition and poetry; but none equal in fame or interest the tribe called Milesian, from whom the purest Irish blood is supposed to descend.

The favourite legends start this famous colony from the East, where Phenius, the head of the family, was supposed to have taught the Phœnicians letters, and left them his name! His son, Niul, not to be behindhand with him, named the Nile, having been sent on an embassy to Egypt, where he married Pharaoh’s daughter! Whether her name was Scota or not, authorities are not agreed; but all declare that it was her father who was drowned in the Red Sea, and that a subsequent dispute with the Egyptians caused either Niul or his son to migrate to Spain.

It is this Niul, or Niale, to whom the whole legion of Niales are to be referred. The name, from niadh, means a champion, and was probably carried backwards to the ancestor from the various Neills, who thought they might as well claim the Nile as their namesake.

Neill of the Nine Hostages, was one of the greatest of the ancient heroes; he was the last but one of the pagan kings of Ireland, and himself most unconsciously imported the seed of the Gospel, for it was his men who, in a piratical descent on the Roman colony of Valentia, carried off the boy who, in after days, was to become the Apostle of Ireland,—one of the many slaves by whom the Gospel has been extended. Neill of the Nine Hostages was killed by an assassin about the year 405; but his family, the Hy Neill, or children of Neill, became one of the leading septs in the North of Ireland. Of them the story is told, that on going to settle on the Ulster coast, one of them resolved to take seisin of the new country by touching the shore before any one else, and finding his boat outstripped, he tore out his dagger, cut off his right hand at the wist, and threw it on the beach, so that his fingers were the first laid on the domain. Such, at least, is the tale that accounts for the O'Neill’s war-cry, Lamhdearg Aboo (Red hand set on), and for the red hand on the shield of the O'Neills and of Ulster, afterwards given by James I. to the knights baronets, whom he created as ‘undertakers’ of the new colony of English, which he wished to found in Ulster.

Ireland thus frequently used Neill, or Niall, and Scotland Niel, as it is there spelt, but it is far more surprising to meet with it among the Scandinavian races. It is evidence that there must have been some considerable intercourse between Ireland and the North before the days of the piracies of the historical ages. The old Irish legends constantly speak of Norway as Lochlinn, or the land of lakes, and show visits taking place between the inhabitants; and there are names to be found in both countries, borrowed from one another, too far back to be ascribed to the Norse invasions.

In the Landnama Bok, the Domesday Book of Iceland, no less than three Njals appear, and the Njalssaga, the history of the noble-spirited yet peaceful Icelander, who, even in the tenth century, had never shed blood, and preferred rather to die with his sons than to live to avenge them, is one of the finest histories that have come down to us from any age. Njal’s likeness to the contraction Nils, has caused many to suppose that it also is a form of Nicolas, but the existence of Nial both in Ireland and Iceland before the conversion of either country contradicts this. Nielsen is a frequent Northern patronymic, and our renowned name of Nelson probably came to us through Danish settlers.

The Northmen apparently took their Njal to France with them, and it there was called Nesle or Nêle. Chroniclers Latinized it as Nigellus, supposing it to mean black; and in Domesday book, twelve landholders called Nigellus appear, both before and after the Conquest, so that they may be supposed to be Danish Niels, left undisturbed in their possessions.

Nigel de Albini, brother to him who married the widow of Henry I., must have been a genuine Norman Niel; and through the numerous Anglo-Norman nobles who were adopted into the Scottish peerage, this form was adopted in addition to the old Gaelic Nial, or as a translation of it, for the young brother of Robert Bruce is called by both names, Nigel and Nial. At present this Latinized Normanism of the old Keltic word is considered as peculiarly Scottish, chiefly because it has been kept up in that form in old Scotch families.

Fergus, Loarn, and Aonghus are said to have been the three brothers who led the migration from Erin to Caledonia, and transferred the name of Scotland from one isle to the other in 503, and Loarn and Angus gave their names to two districts in Scotland.

Anguss was indeed a popular name both in Scotland and Ireland. It comes from the numeral aon, one; it also conveys the sense of pre-eminence, means excellent strength, and it is generally pronounced Haoonish in Gaelic. Irish genealogists make Aongus Turimheach king two hundred and thirty-three years before the Christian era; and we are afterwards told of another Aongas, king of Munster, who had a family of forty-eight sons and daughters, of whom he gave half to St. Patrick to be monks and nuns. In Hanmer’s Chronicle, King Arthur visits Ireland and converses with King Anguish, which painful title is precisely that which Henry VIII., in his correspondence, gives his brother-in-law, the Earl of Angus.

Angus is specially at home in Scotland, but there it has been called Hungus and Ungus, likewise Enos, and is now generally translated into Æneas, the christened name of many a Scot who ought to be Angus; and the Irish are too apt to change it in the same way.^[97]

Section II.—The Feen.

A remarkable cycle of traditions are cherished by the Gaelic race regarding a band of heroes, whom they call the Fiann, or Fenians, and whose exploits are to them what those of Jason, or Theseus, were to the Greeks.

Scotland and Ireland claim them both alike, and point to places named after them and their deeds; but the balance of probability is in favour of Ireland, as their chief scene of adventure, although they may also have spent some time in Morven, as their legends call the West of Scotland, since the Gaelic race was resident in both countries, and kept together in comparative union by its hatred to the Cymry in both. This supposition is confirmed by the semblance of a date that is supplied through the conversion of the last survivor of the band by St. Patrick, which would place their era in the end of the fourth century, just when the migrations of the Scots were taking place, supposing these to have lasted from about A.D. 250 to 500. Still, the Fian may be only one of the ancient imaginations of the Gael, and either never have had any corporeal existence at all, or else, genuine ancient myths may have fixed themselves upon some forefathers, who under their influence have been magnified into heroic—not to say gigantic—proportions.

These tales, songs, and poems lived among the story-telling Highlanders and Irish, unnoticed, until the eighteenth century, when the Scottish author, James Macpherson, perceived that they contained a mine of wild beauty and heroic deeds, and were, in fact, the genuine national poetry of his race.

He put his fragments together into the books of an epic, and wrought up the measured metre of the Gaelic into a sort of stilted English prose, rhythmical, and not without a certain grandeur of cadence and expression; moreover, he left out a good deal of savagery, triviality, repetition, and absurdity; and produced an exceedingly striking book, by expanding the really grand imagery of the ancient bards, and, perhaps, unconsciously imparting Christian heroism to his characters.

There had been some unscrupulousness from the first. Either from nationality or ignorance, Macpherson had entirely ignored the connection with St. Patrick, and made his heroes altogether Scottish, though passing into Ireland; and when a swarm of critics arose, some questioning, some mocking, he did not make a candid statement of what were his materials, but left the world to divide itself between the beliefs that the whole was Ossian’s, or the whole Macpherson’s. Had he been truthful, he would have gained high credit, both as poet and antiquary; but he brought on himself the reputation of an impostor, his literary talents have been forgotten, and the poems themselves are far less regarded than they deserve.

Be the truth what it may, the names of the Fianna were in constant use long before Macpherson was heard of.

In Ireland and West Scotland, the early poems represent Finn and his friends performing high feats of prowess.

Finally, the Feen either invaded Ireland, or became obnoxious to the natives, and were set upon at the battle of Garristown, or Gabhra, pronounced Gavra, loud shouting. The last survivor of them was the poet Oisean, or Ossian, as he is now called, who was said to have lived till the coming of St. Patrick, and to have been taken into his monastery, where old Irish poems show him in most piteous case, complaining much of fasts, and of the “drowsy sound of a bell.”

Section III.—Finn.

Leader of the Fianna, and bestowing on them their very title, stands the great Fion, the grand centre of ancient Gaelic giant lore; his full title being Fionn Mac Cumhail, pronounced Coul. Fingal, the name the Scots have known him by ever since the time of Barbour, is really a confusion of Faingall, the toilers of the Gaul.

There is no doubt of the meaning of fion. It is the same with the Cymric Gwynn, or Wynn, and like them signifies white, fair, or clear, as in the name of Lough Fyne.

One very remarkable feature in the history of Finn is that the same meaning of white attaches to it in ancient or poetical Scandinavian, though not in the other Teutonic languages; nor is the name found in any Teuton nation but the northern ones, except that in the Saxon chronicle, Finn is Odin’s fourth forefather, whereas he is his grandfather in the Edda.

In the great Anglian poem of Beowolf, Finn is king of the Frisians, but is conquered by the Danes, strangely enough, under Henghist; another poem, called the Battle of Finnsburh, records the strife—Finn lost half his kingdom, but the next year he killed Henghist; then being set upon by the other Danes, lost his crown and life. It is likely that, old as the poem is, it has been much altered, and that it really existed before the Anglian colonization of our island; indeed, there is reason to suppose that it was in memory of the burgh of this Frisian Finn, that Finsbury manor in the city of London acquired its name.

Finn is a giant in Norway, compelled by the good Bishop Laurence to erect the church at Lund, after which he was turned into stone by way of payment, wife, child, and all, as may still be seen. Again in Denmark as a trolld, he did the same service for Esbern Snare, building Kallundborg church, on condition that if his name was not guessed by the time the church was finished, his employer should become his property. As in the German tale of Rumpel Stitzchen, the danger was averted by the victim, just in time, overhearing this amiable lullaby in the hole of a rock—

Next morning Esbern saluted Finn by his name, as he was bringing the last half-pillar, whereupon he flew away, pillar and all, wherefore the church only stands to this day on three pillars and a half!

Finn alone, and in combination, is rather a favourite in the North. The Landnama-bok, which gives the Icelandic genealogies from the settlements there in the ninth century down to the middle of the thirteenth, has five men named Finnr, two, Finni, and three ladies called Finna; and in the three countries in the, mainland it has been equally common, even to comparatively recent times, when Finn Magnusson was one of the chief authorities for Scandinavian antiquities. Among the compounds of the name, the Swedes have Finngaard, which their pronunciation contrives to make sound like Fingal, with what is called the “thick l;” and in modern times it is so spelt in allusion to Macpherson’s hero. The name Finnketyl, or Finnkjell, with the feminine Finnkatla, is explained as the cauldron or vessel of some semi-divine Finn. Kettles are rather common in the North, but almost always belong to some divinity of high rank. Finn has his weapons, as Finnbogi, or Finbo, a white bow; Finngeir, a white spear; his sport, as Finleik, white game or reward; his forest, as Finnvidr, or white wood; as well as his guardianship, as Finn-vardr, or white ward, all represented in northern nomenclature, in a manner analogous to those of the national deities.

All this makes it highly probable that Finn was an idea borrowed from the Gael by the Norsemen, especially as the hammer of Thor is sometimes to be heard in Scottish legend resounding in the hand of Finn. Fionn is still a name in Ireland, but in English is translated into Albany; and in Scotland Fionnlaoch, white soldier, has become Finlay.

There are many other Keltic names connected with Finn in the sense of white, such as Finghin, or the fair offspring, which became Finian or Fineen; and as such was the name of two saints, one a friend of St. Patrick, and that teacher of St. Columb, who, when Columb had written out the Psalms from a book lent by him, claimed the copy on the plea that it was the offspring of his manuscript. Nevertheless, St. Columb took care that St. Finan should be duly revered in Scotland, where he has various churches, and one royal namesake, for probably he was the real original of the Finnan, whose reign is placed B.C. 134. Another St. Finghin is patron of Ulster, and left his name to be a favourite in the families of M'Carthy, O'Sullivan, and O'Driscoll, until Finghin M'Carthy Anglicized himself as Florence, in which he has ever since been imitated by his countrymen, though the change did not bring him much good fortune, as his enemies represented that his alias showed sinister intentions; and for other more definite misdeeds, he was thirty-six years imprisoned in the Tower of London. It was a mistake in Lady Morgan to make Florence M'Carthy a woman, for Florence and Flory in Ireland were always men. We do find a Florence mentioned as contemporary with St. Patrick; but this is doubtless meant as a translation of Finghin.

The ladies, however, have not been behindhand in spoiling their derivative from Fionn. Fionn-ghuala, or white shoulder, was a tough-looking name enough, though no one need complain of it as Finnuala, as it actually is spoken, still less as Fenella. Early Keltic maidens used it frequently, and it is found in all manner of shapes in genealogies. In the clouds at the opening of Scottish history, we find Fynbella, or Finella, recorded as the cruel Lady of Fettercairn, who, in 994, killed King Kenneth III.

Another Fynbella was Lady of the Mearns in 1174; Finvola is found in the M'Leod pedigree twice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Macdonnells called her Finwald in 1497. Finvola and Finola thickly stud the Irish pedigrees; and it was perfectly correct in Scott to make Fenella the name of the little wild dumb sprite, whom he placed in the Isle of Man as a daughter of the house of Christian. In almost all its original homes, however, Fenella has been discarded, having been ousted by its supposed equivalent, Penelope (a weaver), and only in a few Irish families is it still retained, and then in the form of Nuala. In Scotland it has turned into the well-known Flora or Florie.

The other feminine forms of Finn have entirely passed away. They were Finbil and Finscoth, white blossom and white flower, answering to the Blanche-fleur of Romance, which it is possible was really meant as a translation; Findelvh, fair countenance; Finnabhor, of the fair eyelids; Finni, the fair; and Findath, fair colour.

Section IV.—Cu, Cun, Gal.

We have treated the name of Fionn alone, because that is, comparatively, plain sailing, while the second syllable of the name by which we call him is beset with interminable perplexities.

If he was only Fingal, it would be easy enough to translate him by ‘white courage;’ but unluckily we know that this was a Lowland contraction, used indeed in Barbour’s Bruce, in the fourteenth century, but not the original form. He was Finn Mac Cumhail; or, according to Hector Boece, in 1526, Finn, filius Cœli, Finn, the son of Heaven; thus making him—as every mythic worthy from Hercules to Arthur has been made—an astronomical parable.

In the first place, it may be observed that Cumhail is in pronunciation nothing but Coul, or Coyl. That murderous letter h has destroyed the m, and itself into the bargain, and their only use is to testify to what the etymology of the word has been.

Here we unite with the other branch of the language in a most curious manner, for Col, Coel, or Coll, was a highly mythic personage in Kymric legend, connected with the original population of Britain.

He is one of the three great swineherds of Britain, in the Triads, the other two being Pwll and Tristram; also, he is one of those who conferred benefits upon Britain, and appears in company with Hu Gadarn.

The title of the swineherd is accounted for in the Welsh tale of a sow called Henwen, the old lady, who was placed under his charge, and came swimming straight for Britain, with Coll holding by her bristles, wherever she swam. There were predictions that Britain would suffer harm from her progeny, and Arthur therefore collected his forces to oppose her landing; but at Aber Tarrogi she came to the shore, and at Wheatfield in Gwent she laid three grains of wheat and three bees, whence corn and honey are the great pride of the district. At Dyved she produced a barleycorn and a pig, to the subsequent benefit of Dyved beer and bacon. She favoured Lleyn with rye, but on Snowdon she bestowed the wolf and the eagle, and on Mona a kitten.

Without going back, like Mr. Davies, to make the sow either into the ark, or a Phœnician ship, it is worth observing that there are traces in Ireland of some pig myth. There is a famous poem called The Hunting of the Pig, resulting in its being slain at Muckamore; and muc, a pig, and torc, a boar, are constantly found in old names of places, as if the swine cult had been of a higher kind than that at present received by the species.

Not wholly substantial is the next British Coel-ap-Cyllin, who with Bran the Blessed, and his own son Lleurig, makes up a triad of promoters of Christianity in Britain.

We are scarcely sure of more than his existence; not quite that he left his name to Colchester, and far less that he is the father of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine.

Col or Gall was the name of a companion of St. Columbanus, and, like him, one of the great missionary saints of Ireland, who finished the imperfect work of conversion of the Kelts, scattered in the borders of France, Germany, and Switzerland. His name of St. Gall is still attached to the great monastery near the Lake of Constance.

The prefix cu is, in its primary meaning, a dog, and is thus declined: cu (nom.), con (gen.), coin (dat.); thus showing its kindred with the Sanscrit çvan, Greek κυων (cyon), and Latin canis, the chien of France, and cane of Italy; hund and hound elsewhere. Only the land of the magnificent wolf-hound would have made his designation (elsewhere a term of scorn) into the title of the brave warrior, and thence into that of a chieftain. And so again it is the Kelts of Britain that transmuted the mungoose and snake of the Indian legend into the faithful dog and wild wolf of Bedgelert, the grave of the hound. Caleb, and an occasional Danish Hund, have alone elsewhere endured the name of the most faithful of animals; but in Gaelic it is a most favourite prefix. By the author of the Annals of Ulster, it is literally translated Canis, making us wonder whether, in the Scala family, Cane, so famous in Dante’s time, could have been a rendering of some ancient Celtic Cu.

Conn, when standing alone, as in the case of Conn of the Hundred Battles, means wisdom.

Several of the most distinguished Fenians have this prefix, and have handed it on to a great number of successors. Conghal would seem to have been the proper name of Finn’s father; and, in Macpherson’s poem, a Congal reigns over Ulster, as many a Congal assuredly did both before and after his time.

Connal, or Connel, a name sometimes said to mean friendship, is given to one of the Ossianic heroes, who makes a great figure in Macpherson’s epic, and is said to have named Tirconnel. The name continued in great favour, and the popular tales of the Highlands describe a certain ingenious Conall, whose adventures are a most curious mixture of those of Ulysses and Sindbad the Sailor, and are related in the same way as those of the Three Calenders and other worthies in the Arabian Nights. History says that Congal Claen, king of Ulster, slew Suibne, king of Ireland, but was then attacked and defeated by Domnall II., Suibne’s successor; that he then fled to Donald-brec, or the Freckled, king of the Scots, and brought him to Ireland to be defeated at Magrath, in 637. An Irish saint, called Congal, founded the Great Abbey of Ben-chor, in Ulster, answering to Ban-chor, in Wales, and thus formed the nursery of the great missions of the Irish Church in the sixth century.

Conan of small renown, as Macpherson calls him, was an unfortunate Fenian, who always served as the butt of the rest, and is called in other legends Conan Maol, the bald. He is in character a good deal like the Sir Kay of Arthur’s court. The M'Connans now have borrowed the English names of Kenyon and Canning. His name comes to light in the Cymric branch, in the person of the British Conan, or Kynan Meriadech, who is said to have led a migration of Britons to Armorica, and to be the patriarch of the Dukes of Brittany. Of him is told the pretty tale of the spotless ermine, that took refuge under his shield, and was spared by him, its skin thenceforth forming the cognizance of Brittany, with the motto, Malò mori quàm fœdari.

He is also said to have been the intended husband of St. Ursula; and, at any rate, suggested the name of many a Conan among the Breton princes, until the father of the unfortunate Constance, a name very possibly given as a supposed feminine to Conan, since Constantine has devoured all manner of varieties of cu and con, and thus occasions the numerous occurrences of this imperial designation as labels to the grim portraits in the hall at Holyrood, who, after all, look more like Roman Constantines than Caledonian Congals, Conaires, or Conchobars.

Connchobhar is also translated as Cornelius and Charles. Here conn means strength, and cobhair, aid, or if the spelling ought to be Conchobhar, it would be wolf-dog aid, and it is a word as variously rendered by those who wish to retain its native form as by those who try to change it into an ordinary name. Macpherson calls it Conachar, and thence we have the assumed name of the unfortunate young chieftain whom Sir Walter Scott placed in the deadly fight between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, to exemplify the struggle between constitutional timidity and fear of shame. Conchabhar, who reigned in Scotland in 847, and Cunechat or Conquhare, who was Maormar of Angus in the tenth century, are both forms of Connchobhar, which in the North-East of Ireland is vulgarly called Crogher and Crohoore. The last is said to be the best representation of the spoken word; but Connor is the usual version, and much the most euphonious to English ears; but then it is said also to represent Connaire, one endowed with strength, aire being a word added to form an adjective, and Conmor, also in use in the days of the Fenians. Indeed, Ireland had many royal Connors, one dignified as the Great; but Conchobar. Conmor, and Connaire, are all confused in them.

Constantine is used in the Maguire family as a rendering of Cú Connacht, the hound of Connaught; Munster’s hound is Cú Mumhan; Cashel’s, Cú Chaisil. The river Shannon has Cú Sionnan; the mountain has Cú-sleibhe; and, strangest of all, there is Cugan-mathair, hound without a mother. Cú-Mhidhe, hound of Meath, is simply pronounced Cooey; but in the O'Kane family has been turned into Quentin, and it may be concluded that a similar process in Scotland changed the hound of Meath into the Latin fifth, and accounts for the various Quentins.

Meath Cuchullin is the name of the hero with which Macpherson’s epic opens: “Cuchullin sat by Tara’s wall, by the tree of the rustling leaf.” His name is explained in the note, to mean, the voice of Ullin or Ulster; Gath Ullin, voice of Ulster; but Ullin does not mean Ulster at all. It was not the hero’s original name; but when young he killed a wolf-hound belonging to Culain, the smith of Ulster. He answered the owner’s complaints by saying, “I will be your hound,” and thus obtained the nickname of Cú Culain, Culain’s dog. Cuchullin was a great hero, and a Gaelic proverb, “as strong as Cuchullin,” is still in use. To Cuchullin belongs the Keltic version of the story of the single combat between the unknown father and son, only recognized too late by the tokens left with the mother. In Persia and Ireland the son is killed; in Greece, the father; in Germany alone the conclusion is happy!

As to the MacCuinns, they have dignified themselves as MacQueen in Scotland, while their cousins in Ireland from O'Cuinn have become Quin.

Of all the heroes of the Feen, Diarmaid, whose name means free man, was one of the most distinguished, and though not brought in by Macpherson, his legend bears the same sort of relation to the main cycle, as does the story of Orlando to the Court of Charlemagne, or that of Lancelot to the Round Table.

Grainne was the daughter of Cormac MacArt, king of the fifth part of Ulster, who built at Tara for her the Grianan of one pillar, or royal palace. She was a lady of extremely quick wit, and gained the heart of Fionn by her answers to a series of questions, which tradition still preserves.

Fionn met with the usual fate of uncles in romance, for his nephew, Diarmaid, fell in love with her too, and was the more irresistible, as he had a beauty spot, which made every woman who saw it fall in love with him. The young pair fled away together, and there is an extremely long poem on their adventures and mutual affection, but fate at length overtook Diarmaid. A great hunting took place, at which all the Feen were present; in the course of which they came on the track of a venomous boar, whose back was sixteen feet long, and soon after they found some shavings of wood made by Diarmaid in cutting out dishes with his knife. Having thus discovered his retreat, Fionn summoned his rival, and commanded him to join in the hunt, in hopes that he would thus meet his death; but Diarmaid killed the animal without receiving damage. Fionn then remembered that Diarmaid, like Achilles and Siegfried, had a fatal spot in his foot, and desired him to measure the boar by pacing it against the hair. One of the bristles went into the fatal spot, and Diarmaid fell dying; he asked for some water, and Fionn was bringing him some from the stream between his hands, when he thought on Grainne, and let it run through. Diarmaid died, and his corpse was brought home to his wife, whose lamentation is given as a separate poem. Diarmaid was also called Doun, the brown, and the clan descended from him were the O'Duine. The heiress of this line, Aoiffe or Eva, married Gillaspick Campbell, of an Anglo-Norman family, and Campbell has ever since been the Lowland surname of the great clan; but in the North they are still the sons of Diarmid; and their crest, the boar’s head, is in memory of the fatal hunting.

Diarmaid continued in use both in Scotland and Ireland; and in historical times it was Diarmaid, king of Leinster, who acted the part of Paris, and ruined his country by the abduction of Dervorgil of Meath; and then, when forced by the superior king to give up the lady, revenged himself by calling in Earl Strongbow and the English.

Diarmid, or, as it is commonly called, Dermot or Darby, is still common among the Irish. Where the saying about Darby and Joan arose, I cannot discover. Darby is the form of Diarmid in Limerick and Tipperary; Jeremiah, strange to say, is used for it in Cork and Kerry. Napoleon, in his enthusiasm for the Ossianic poems of Macpherson, named two of his heroes therefrom, but Diarmaid Murat died in childhood.

Grainne’s name has been equally popular with that of her lover. Ancient Irish ladies constantly use it; the most celebrated being Grainne O'Maille, a notable sailor chieftainess of the south-western coast, whence she once sallied forth to pay a friendly visit to Queen Elizabeth; and when the two high-spirited women were together, the semi-barbarian was more than a match for the civilized queen.

Graine was soon after translated into Grace; indeed, the piratess was also called Grace O'Malley; and ever since, Grace has been a favourite national name in Scotland and Ireland, wherever Graine has been used; it has been accepted for its English meaning and pleasant sound, and is now very frequent.

Section VI.—Cormac.

Cormac is a name that makes a great figure in the Ossianic poems, and perhaps the son of Corb, i. e., a chariot, that is, a charioteer. Cormac, king of Ulster, was the young ward of Cuchullin; and another Cormac, called Cairbar, or the strong, was the father of a lady called Morna, or more properly, Muirne, who when one lover returned from battle, announcing that he had slain his rival, demanded his sword stained with the blood, and then took revenge by plunging it into his breast, and finally killed herself with it. A still more misty Cormac figures in ancient pedigrees, as having been choked by the bone of an enchanted salmon; and Cormac Cas is a more remote ancestor of the O'Briens than the great Brien Boromhe himself.

Another Cormac is named in Irish calendars, as an abbot of eminent sanctity in the days of St. Columba. He is further thought to have visited Iona, and at home enjoys the credit of having endowed the sept of the Hy Muireadach with “prosperity of cattle, the gift of eloquence, success in fosterage, the gift of good counsel, and the headship of peace and protection.” His name has since been common in Ireland.

Cormac used to be barbarously spelt Cormick and Cormuck, and the MacCarthy family have substituted Charles for it. There is a long Icelandic poem on a hero named Kormak, who, though his parents and brothers have Norse names, evidently had Milesian blood as well as name, for he is described as having dark eyes and hair, with a fair skin. He was an admirable warrior and poet, but was the victim of hopeless love for a lady named Steingerda.

Cairbre, strong man, is likewise one of the Ossianic names, as well as a soubriquet of Cormac. Cairbre again is reckoned as the first of the Milesians to settle in Ulster; and another Cairbre, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, bequeathed his name to the district now called Carbury.

Cairbre appears as the Irish sovereign who was the greatest foe of the Fenians, and commanded at the battle of Gabhra, in which their force was broken; and the son of Oisean, the grandson of Fionn, the beloved Osgar, was treacherously slain, by a thrust in the side, by Cairbre himself. The tears shed by the great Fionn were for his grandson Osgar, and for his faithful dog Bran; and a great quantity of poetry has clustered round the death of this young hero. Oscar Bernadotte, another of Napoleon’s Ossianic godsons, recently sat upon the Swedish throne, though amongst us, this, like others of the Fenian names, has descended to dogs. It is explained as the bounding warrior, and the MacOscars, in Ireland, have been turned into Cosgrove and Costello.

The like fate has befallen the object of Osgar’s love, Malvina, as Macpherson calls her. The name is a mere invention of his own, formed perhaps from Maol, a handmaid. It has been adopted by French women to such an extent, that Malvine is one of the regular Parisienne’s names, and it has further travelled to Germany. Thus Osgar and Malvina, though with few namesakes in their own country, are the only Fenians who have been commemorated in continental nomenclature.

Múirne means affection, and when Anglicized as Morna, is considered as a Highland name.

Section VII.—Cath.

Universal among the Kelts is Cath or Cad, a battle or defence, such a prefix that is sure to flourish in every war-like nation.

Cathuil, a derivative of Cath, is a great chieftain attended by three hundred followers; and Cathal, as the name became, continued in use among the O'Connors, who translate it as Charles. The favourite hero there was Cathal Crobhdearg, red-handed, who fought hard against the English invaders; and, therefore, was described by them as a blood-thirsty ruffian, and by native historians as pious and amiable, probably being both characters in turn. His name was probably the parent of the Scottish surname, Cadell; but a Welsh saint, named Cadell, a battle-defence or shield, lived in the twelfth century. He had been a fierce warrior, and a great enemy to the English; but during his recovery from some severe wounds, he repented, went to the Holy Land as a penitent, and finally became a monk, and the patron of many a Cadell besides.

Cathbarr means tumult of battle. Cathbarr was so renowned a chief, that to strike his shield with a spear was the summons to his clan to arm. The Welsh made great use of the same prefix. Cadwallon, apparently from cadw, to defend, has always been common among them. Cadwallon was the brother of the Madoc of Southey, and a much earlier Cadwallon was the father of Cadwaladyr, or battle-arranger, regarded by the two parties much as Cathal was; for by the Saxons, Ceadwalla, as they call him, the slayer of the good Edwin and Oswald, is regarded with unmixed horror, while his own Cymric countrymen revere him as a glorious patriotic prince, second only to Arthur, and worthy of saintly honours; indeed he was canonized by Pope Sergius in 688, and is surnamed the Blessed. Cadwaldr in Breton, and Cadwalladyr in Welsh, continue to the present day. Cadwallader is also used in the Highlands, though, perhaps, this may be a blunder for some Gaelic Cath.

Saints of this name were numerous. Among them was Cedd, as his adopted people called him, the Good Bishop, whose Keltic ecclesiastical habits were so distasteful to the fiery Wilfred of York, and who finally is revered at Lichfield as “good St. Chad,” a form in which his appellation lingered among the midland peasantry. The grandfather of Cadwalladyr was Cadvan, whose Latin epitaph calls him “Catamarus, rex sapientissimus,” and whose name means battlehorn. Another Caduan, or Cadvan, was a hermit who migrated from Brittany to live on the coast of Caernarvonshire, on the isle called Bardsey by the English, and Ynis Eolli, Isle of the Current, by the Welsh. It was reputed a place of so much sanctity, that it was called the Rome of Britain; and so many saints were buried there, that it was a saying of the bards—

Cattwg, or Cadoc, was of princely blood, founded a monastery, and trained the veritable bard, Taliessin.

The Greek Adelphios was translated by the Welsh into Cadffrawd. Sir Cados is one of gentle Enid’s enemies, in the French romance of her constancy; but Cado, her son, in Welsh pedigree, swells the roll of saints. Cadfar, or stout in battle, is almost certainly one of the Armorican contributions to the Paladins of Charlemagne, in the shape of Sir Gadifer, the Don Gayferos of Spanish ballad and of Don Quixote.

Section VIII.—Fiachra.

Fiachra, or Fiaghra, is, as the Fiach is in Irish, a raven. Fiachere MacFhinn is a son of Fingal, who does his part among the traditions of the Fenians; and another Fiachra was the father of the last pagan king of Ireland, who, as Erse lore relates, reigned over Erin, Albin, and Britain, and as far as the mountains of the Alps. He succeeded his uncle Niall of the Nine Hostages, in 405, and went to the Alps to revenge his death. Being still a pagan, he demolished a tower of sods and stones sixty feet high, in which lived a saint, eleven feet from the light, and was accordingly cursed by the saint, and killed by a flash of lightning; but his servants put a lighted sponge in his mouth to imitate his breath, by way of concealing his death for some time.

Fiachra was the name of a hermit who left home to seek for solitude in France, and lived at Brenil, about two leagues from Meaux. He particularly applied himself to the cultivation of his little garden, and has ever since been considered as the patron of gardeners; and his austerity was such, that no woman was allowed to come within his precincts. He died about 670, and his relics began to obtain a miraculous reputation, which increased so much, that, though little known in his own country, France is full of churches dedicated to him.

Anne of Austria was particularly devoted to him; she thought the recovery of her husband, and the birth of the great Louis XIV. himself, were due to his intercessions; and she made a pilgrimage to his shrine, remembering so well his objections to womankind, that she never attempted to cross his threshold, but knelt before the door.

It does not appear, however, that the name of Fiacre was adopted by any one in deference to this devotion, except, perhaps, the Fiak of Brittany. All it did was to pass to the first hackney-coaches of Paris, which, from being used as a commodious mode of going on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Fiacre, received the appellation they have had ever since. It is a whimsical concatenation that has named the fiacres of Paris after the misty raven of the race of Fingal.

Rín means a seal or sea-calf in Gaelic. Ronan is the derivative. He is a hero whose death is lamented in the Ossianic poetry, and his name was afterwards borne by a large number of Irish and Scottish saints, from whom came Ronan in Scotland, Ronayne in Ireland, once with the feminine Ronat.^[98]

Section IX.—Names of Complexion.

Names of complexion were very frequent among the various branches of Kelts, often as mere affixed soubriquets, but growing from thence into absolute individual names. Dhu and ciar, the black; dorchaid, the dark; dearg and ruadh, red; don, brown; boid, yellow; finn, white; odhar, pale; flann and corcair, ruddy; lachtna and uaithne, green; glas, which is blue in Wales, green in Ireland, and grey in the Highlands; gorm, blue; liath, grey; riabhach, greyish, have all furnished their share of names and epithets.

Dougall and Dugald have been from time immemorial Highland names, and, together with Donald, serve as the national nickname of the Gael among the Lowlanders. Dowal is used in Ireland. Donald is the Anglicism of Donghal, brown stranger, an early Scottish and Irish name, and likewise of Domhnall, which is probably really the same, though the Irish glossographers translated it a proud chieftain, and now have turned it into Donat and Daniel, or Dan.

Donald is reckoned as the first Christian king of Scotland.

To Beath, life, may be referred Betha, an old hereditary English name, and the Latinism of Bega or Begga, for a saint, called otherwise Hien or Hayne. She was of Irish birth; but about 620, was imported by some of the Keltic missionaries of the North of England, and St. Aidan consecrated her at Whitby as the first nun in Northumbria. Leaving St. Hilda to govern there in her stead, she founded the abbey, known by her English name of St. Bees, and at present serving as a university. A French St. Begga, whose mother was Northumbrian, was wife to a man whose strange destiny was to be, first, Maire du Palais, then, Bishop of Metz, and lastly to be killed in the chace. After his death, she founded a monastery, which is considered by some to have been the germ of the admirable institution of béguines, who did the work of sisters of charity in the Netherlands long before the French order was established by St. Vincent de Paul. Some, however, deduce them from a priest at Liege, called Lambert le bégue, or the stammerer. Begga was probably imported by the Danes to Scandinavia, where it is still in use, though there it may be a contraction for either Bergljot or Brigitta. The Venerable Bede himself, the father of English history, called Beda in Latin, is referred to the Welsh Bedaws, another form of the word life; but it has been more usual to explain his name by reference to the Teuton verbs, meaning to bid or to pray. However, that several Keltic forms did prevail is certain, especially among the churchmen of the northern counties.

Macduff no doubt was so called from Dubhoda, Maormar of Fife. Another Duff had exchanged the Gaelic Maormar for the English Earl, in 1115, and Dubican was Maormar of Angus, in 939.

Among ladies the Irish had Dubhdeasa, dark beauty, Dubhchoblaith (pronounced Duvcovla), or black victory, and Dubhessa, or black nurse. Duvessa O'Farrell died in 1301; and this same appellation Spenser must afterwards have heard in Ireland, when, struck, no doubt, by the du at the commencement sounding like two, as did the other Irish name Una resemble one, he called his emblem of falsehood, or perhaps of the Church of Rome, the false Duessa, while he gave the title of Una to his lovely personation of the one truth, the one true undivided Church, the guide of the Red Cross Knight. Irish antiquaries assure us that Una means dearth or famine; but it hardly suits this etymology. Una is queen of the fairies in the county of Ormond, in which character she appears in one version of the story of the soldier billeted on a miser. The man was amazed at his hospitable reception and entertainment, as he thought, by the avaricious squire in question, until morning disclosed that the fairy queen Una had raised the mansion and provided the supper, but from the prime cow in the miser’s herd.

Una has continued in use among the Irish peasantry, though much corrupted, being often pronounced Oonagh, and Anglicized as Winny, the contraction of Winifred, the English version of the Welsh Gwenfrewi.

The female Christian name of Douglas, which belonged to one of the unfortunate wives of Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester, was either a free version of one of those varieties of ‘dark ladyes,’ or else was one of the first specimens of a surname converted into a Christian name, perhaps in compliment to Lady Margaret Douglas, the niece of Henry VIII. and mother of Lord Darnley. Douglas was, without doubt, a territorial designation from the dark vale and stream of Douglas; but the heralds and genealogists of the gallant lineage of the bleeding heart made out an ancestor, ‘Sholto Dhu Glas’ (see the dark grey man), and then Sholto was adopted as a name in the Douglas family, and crept from thence to others. I have found no instance of it before the seventeenth century in looking through the peerage of Scotland, and the probable derivation of the word would be sioltaich, a sower.

Duncan was either Donnachu, brown chief, or Donngal, brown stranger, both which names were rife among the Scots, and Duncan has so continued ever since. Duncan and Donald both occur as Keltic slaves in Iceland, in the Saga of Burnt Njal; and, perhaps, not only the Irish, but even the saintly Scottish David, may have been at first an Anglicized Domnhall.

Don stands alone as a name in Hanmer’s list of Finn’s warriors; Donnan was an Irish name, and Donchada became Donoghoe, sometimes even now baptismal, but best known as the O'Donoghoe, the great visionary horseman of Killarney.

The word is really the same as our dun, though that has now come to express a misty dark grey, while don evidently means brown-haired, as in the feminine Duinsech. Don, as it stands at the end of the name of ‘The O'Connor,’ simply shows that he is the head of the brown branch of that sept, which anciently split into brown and red—O'Connor Don and O'Connor Roe, like the black and red Douglases of Scotland.

Roe is the Anglicism for ruadh, the colour that goes by the same title in all our cognate tongues, from the Greek ροδος to the Gadhaelic ruadh, and Cymric rud, rhud. It plays the chief part in nomenclature in Ireland and Scotland, where the true undiluted Gaels are divided between the black and the red.

The Irish Ruadri, Ruadhan, Ruadhaic, the Scottish Ruaridh, and Welsh Rhydderch, have all alike disguised themselves as Roderick, which is in each case supposed to be the full name of those who in ordinary parlance call themselves Rory or Roy.

In Welsh myths we meet with Rhwddlwan Gawr, the red bony giant, and in Merddhyn’s time we come upon Rhydderch Hoel, or the liberal, the champion of the Christian faith, who was the friend of St. Columba, restored St. Kentigern to Glasgow, and was promised by the former that he should never fall into the hands of his enemies, but should die with his head on his pillow—a promise that a Saxon long after would have scorned. He was a discourager of Druidism, and is reviled by Merlin. His name may come from rhydez, the exalted.

Several less shadowy kings reigned in Wales, the most distinguished of whom united all the three principalities till the year 877, and was called Rydderch Mawr, or, as it is barbarously called in our histories, Roderick Maur; much resembling what has been done with Roderick Dhu.

Dearbhforgail, or Derforgal, is translated by the Four Masters, ‘purely fair daughter;’ but later critics make it ‘the true oath,’ from dearbh, an oath, and fior-glan, true.

Dearbhforghal was a very tough name for the genealogists, and they had a good deal of it, for it was very fashionable in the twelfth century both in Scotland and Ireland, and was turned into Dervorgilla and Dornadilla by the much tormented chroniclers.

Lachtnan, from the Erse lachtna, green, is less easily accountable, unless it meant fresh and flourishing. It is now turned, in Ireland, into Loughnan, and more often into Lucius. The Scottish name so like in sound Lachlan or Loughlan, is however more probably from laochail, warlike.

Glas, grey, blue, or green, changes its meaning wherever it goes; but Glasan, in Irish, is its only Christian name, though it was a great epithet in all its countries, and has resulted in many a surname of Glass, besides the Highland Maglashan.

Cearan, or Ceirin, from ciar, black, was the name of one of the twelve Irish bishops whom St. Patrick consecrated. He betook himself to solitude in a place surrounded with bogs in Ireland, called from him Saiger, or Sier Kieran; but a tribe of disciples followed him, and a monastery arose; so, in search of loneliness, he fled to Cornwall, where he lived in a cell, and taught the inhabitants so much, that they ascribed to him even their knowledge of mining; and the 5th of March, his day, was considered as the tinners' holiday, in honour of their patron saint. His name, however, following the rule of the Cymric p for a Gaelic k, has turned into Pirin, or Perran, and is, in this form, not yet lost among the Cornish miners. His cell had a church built over it, called St. Pierans in Sabulo, or in the sand, and now Peranzabuloe. And in the sand it is, for it was absolutely choked by drifting sands, and abandoned in favour of a new one. In 1835 it was disinterred, and found to be a very curious specimen of ancient architecture. Another Ceiran was the patron of the Scots who first came from Ireland; and left his name to many a Kilkeran on the west coast. He is sometimes called St. Queran.

Cear is the soubriquet of Caoinnach I. of Scotland, who was killed in 621, after a reign of three months. The meaning of the epithet is questioned in his case, some calling it ciar, black; others, cearr, left-handed. The king himself rejoices in many varieties of name,—Caoinnach, in Irish, Coinadh; then, again, Conchad, Connadh, Kinat, and Cinead; till, finally, it has settled into the national Scottish Christian name of Kenneth in the Lowlands, Caioneach, in the Gaelic, denoting a fair and comely, or mild-tempered or peaceablepeaceable man.

Caoin and Caomh are closely related, and both mean kind or fair. Caoimghin was that Irish saint who is commonly known as Kevin, and owns one of the seven churches of Glendalough, as well as the cave, whence a very modern legend, versified by Moore, shows him rejecting Kathleen’s visit by hurling her into the lake.^[99]