Scottish Place Names Around The World

For a comparatively small nation, Scotland contributed greatly to new place names around the English-speaking world. In one country after another, where British settlers put down permanent roots, Scottish names can be found in abundance. For instance, there are at least 550 towns, suburbs, villages, mountains, rivers and other topographical features in South Africa alone that have Scottish names, as do more than 200 localities in Metropolitan New York. In this feature we look at the names of Scottish people that have been used around the world. In part two of this feature in our next issue, we will look at how the names of Scottish places have been used across the world.

Waves of Scottish settlers took not only their distinctive culture but also their names with them. The first among these were men and women who left Scotland during the seventeenth century for the West Indies and the southern colonies in America, both as free settlers and as political prisoners transported there by Oliver Cromwell. A second major wave were the Scots-Irish, i.e., ethnic Scots from Northern Ireland, who sailed in large numbers to New England, New York, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas during the early 1700s and whose hardy descendants effectively opened up the interior of what was to become the USA. Among the loyalists who left the USA after the American War of Independence were many Scotsmen, who took their names to Canada. Large-scale Scottish migration, mainly for economic reasons, including the forced clearances of the Highlands, made the Scots a highly visible element in countries such as Canada and New Zealand. Moreover, the lure of gold during the nineteenth century also resulted in large concentrations of Scottish place names in California, Yukon, Victoria, New South Wales and the Transvaal.

Toponymists generally agree that a major source of new names for places (second only to names that are purely descriptive of the terrain) is the honouring of an individual. In pioneer societies, such individuals might be explorers and missionaries, farmers and businessmen, mayors and aldermen. Royalty and nobility were also frequently honoured in colonial place names, often for places they never got to see! Military generals, governors, premiers and colonial secretaries provided another rich source of place names in the colonies. And, of course, homesick pioneers frequently named their new settlements after towns and villages, mountains and rivers in the Old Country. Scottish examples of all these sources of names can be found throughout the former colonies.

Explorers and missionaries

The missionary-explorer David Livingstone is one of the best-known examples in this category. Dr Livingstone's discoveries resulted in place names in the very heart of Africa such as the town of Livingstone in Zambia and the city of Blantyre in Malawi (Blantyre was Livingstone's birthplace in South Lanarkshire). Other Scottish explorers whose names are preserved in local place names include Alexander Mackenzie in Canada and Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell in Australia, to name but two. Scottish missionaries and ministers of religion contributed their share as well.

Pioneers and other early settlers

This category forms by far the largest source of Scottish place names abroad. There are thousands of distinctive Scottish family names but the ones that seem to occur most commonly in place names overseas are Anderson, Bell, Cameron, Campbell, Crawford, Davidson, Douglas, Duncan, Fraser, Gordon, Graham, Grant, Hamilton, Henderson, Irving, MacDonald, MacGregor, Melville, Murray, Paterson, St Clair/Sinclair, Scott, Stewart and Wallace. A large number of places named for early settlers are prefixed by the word 'Glen', some examples from major cities being Glen Ellyn in Chicago, Glenkay in Johannesburg and Glenferrie in Melbourne. "Mac-Mac Falls" in South Africa were named after the 19th century gold-mining village nearby, either for the MacClaughton brothers, said to be the first diggers in the area, or because a list of diggers handed to President T.F. Burgers contained so many Scots names that he called it Mac-Mac.

In Canada, the names of many places honour Forres-born Donald Alexander Smith who, in recognition of his pioneering efforts on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway, was created Lord Strathcona. Examples include city neighbourhoods called Strathcona in Vancouver, Edmonton and Hamilton, Strathcona Gardens (Burlington), Strathcona Park (Calgary) and Transcona (Winnipeg and Regina). Another Canadian example is Lanark-born James Douglas, the "Father of British Columbia", after whom several places were named including, most probably, the neighbourhood of Douglas in Surrey, Vancouver.

Royalty and nobility

Examples in this category are Strathmore in Melbourne (honouring the late Queen Mother), Melville in Perth (named after Robert Dundas, the second Viscount Melville), Minto in Sydney (Gilbert Elliot Minto, Governor of India from 1807 to 1814), Atholl Heights in Durban (the Duke of Atholl), Buccleuch in Johannesburg (the Duke of Buccleuch) and Perth Amboy in Metropolitan New York (the Earl of Perth).

Administrators and politicians

Good Canadian examples are the numerous localities named Lorne or Argyll for John Douglas Sutherland Campbell (the Marquess of Lorne and the 9th Duke of Argyll) who was Governor General of Canada between 1878 and 1883. Specific examples include the Edmonton neighbourhood of Argyll, Lorneville in New Brunswick and Lorne Park in Mississauga. The best Australian example is Lachlan Macquarie, the "Father of Australia", who was one of the most popular colonial Governors of NSW. Port Macquarie in NSW, Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, several suburbs in Sydney, Newcastle and Canberra and at least 45 streets, roads and avenues in Metropolitan Sydney were all named in his honour. Macquarie was an inveterate place-namer, bestowing on the Australian landscape several Scottish names connected with his birthplace in the Hebrides and that of his wife in Argyllshire. Other places honouring Governors or Provincial Superintendents include Maitland (Cape Town) and MacAndrew Bay (Dunedin).

Many American Presidents had Scottish ancestors, resulting in hundreds of towns and villages named after Presidents Andrew Johnson, Chester Alan Arthur, William McKinley and William Howard Taft, not to mention Presidents Ulysses Simpson Grant and James Monroe, where the Scottish connection is more remote. Perhaps the best-known example here is Mount McKinley in Alaska, the tallest mountain in North America.

Literary sources

During the nineteenth century, many places were named for popular novels, poems and their authors. Of the Scottish examples, two writers stand out – the novelist Sir Walter Scott and Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. A surprisingly large number of places were named for Sir Walter Scott novels and poems or characters in his novels, the two that occur most frequently being Waverley (Waverly in the USA) and Ivanhoe. Ironically, neither of these names is actually Scottish! Just as popular, it would seem, is Abbotsford, the name of Sir Walter's residence in the Scottish Borders, which can be found in Melbourne, Sydney, Dunedin, East London, Johannesburg, Philadelphia and near Vancouver. Melrose, the Scottish Borders market town near Abbotsford, is found in at least 19 American States and is hugely popular as a suburban name.

To Robert Burns are attributed place names such as Alloway, Brigadoon and Tam O' Shanter, while the town of Mosgiel, near Dunedin, New Zealand was named after Robert Burns's farm in Ayrshire, 'Mossgiel'.

The astonishing number of place names around the world that have direct or indirect connections with Scotland is an enduring legacy of the major contribution made by the Scots and their descendants to the melting pot of cultures that have formed new societies in North America, Africa and the Antipodes.

Further information

For more information and examples of Scottish place names around the world see the Rampant Scotland Website.

If you know of any other places around the world named after a Scot, please do let us know, by clicking here.

Photograph: VisitScotland/SCOTTISH VIEWPOINT