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Early 16th Century Scottish Lowland Names
Women's Given Names | Men's Given Names | Surnames

Early 16th Century Scottish Lowland Names

Given Names Used by Both Men and Women
Draft Edition

Very few names were used by both men and women; nearly all women's names were used only by women and nearly all men's names were used only by men. Below are those few names used by both genders. Note that for some of them the particular forms and patterns of use were a bit different for men and women.

The names in these tables are from the Aberdeen Council Register from the years 1500-1550. Instances refers to the number of mentions found, not different individuals; a number of instances may refer to the same individual. In addition, this data does not include all instances of given names recorded in the Aberdeen Council Register from 1500-1550! Therefore, the number of instances are only a very rough guide to the relative popularity of a name and only somewhat more reliable as an indication of how common a particular spelling or form of a name was compared to other spellings and forms of the same name.

Note that the spellings used for name headings may be modern spellings only; please refer to the 16th century spellings listed in the tables.

A <3> in a spelling represents the letter yogh. In 16th century Scots, yogh was usually pronounced with a consonantal \y\ sound, like the <y> in English <yes>.

In 16th century Scots handwriting, a y-shape was used for two different letters, thorn and actual <y>. Thorn is pronounced like the letters <th>. (This is the source of the cliche "ye olde" -- the <y> in <ye> represents a thorn, and this <ye> is pronounced like, and indeed is, the word <the>.) In the names below that use <y>, if other 16th century spellings or the modern spelling of that name use <th>, <t>, or <d> instead, then the <y> represents thorn; otherwise, it represents a normal <y>.

The letters <u>, <v>, and <w> were sometimes used interchangeably, depending on context.Similarly, the letters <i> and <j> were sometimes used interchangeably, also depending on context. In the names below, use the modern form as a guide to interpreting any of these letters in the 16th century spellings.

An equals sign (=) after a spelling indicates that it is a standard full spelling of a name recorded in the manuscript in greatly abbreviated form. For example, <Alexander=> and <David=> represent the standard full spellings of names recorded in the manuscript as <Alx’> (or <Alxr’> or <Alexr’>, etc.) and <Dd> (or <Dad>, etc.).

An apostrophe (’) in a 16th century spelling indicates an unexpanded abbreviation mark. In most cases below these were superfluous scribal flourishes, but it is possible that a few real abbreviations have mistakenly been left unexpanded.

An asterisk (*) after a spelling indicates that it was expanded from a non-diplomatic transcription which may have contained errors; unless the same spelling is also listed without an asterisk, these spellings are suspect but still indicate that some (possibly different) form of the name was used in the year(s) indicated.

A question mark (?) after a spelling indicates that it may be a misspelling in the original manuscript, transcription error, or typo; unless the same spelling is also listed without a question mark, these spellings are suspect but still indicate that some (possibly different) form of the name was used in the year(s) indicated.

Christian

Women (40 Instances Total)

Men (6 Instances Total)

Forsy

Women (4 Instances Total)

Men (1 Instance Total)

Giles

Women (9 Instances Total)

Men (8 Instances Total)

James

Women (1 Instances Total)

Men (73 Instances Total)

Early 16th Century Scottish Lowland Names
Women's Given Names | Men's Given Names | Surnames

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