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When Gaelic first names were recorded in official documents such as OPRs, attempts were often made to Anglicize them. Being familiar with Homer’s Iliad, session clerks sometimes substituted Gaelic or Norse names with similar-sounding Homeric ones, hence many boys called Aonghas in Gaelic were recorded as Aeneas, and those with the Norse name Ivor became Evander.

Sometimes, several Gaelic names had only one English ‘equivalent’, such as John. Bill Lawson found a Hebridean family with sons called Iain, Shauny, Eoin and Iagan: the registrar recorded all four as John!

There were also names that were commonly substituted not because they were actually linked etymologically but simply because they were vaguely similar. This, as with the spellings, was at the whim of the recording clerk: your ancestors seldom had any say in the matter. Some common variants are as follows, but someone recorded with one variant may easily appear elsewhere under another.

These are generalizations. Local custom was often random, though more eccentric. Bill Lawson’s studies of the Hebrides show that Bethag was Anglicized to Rebecca in Harris, and to Betty or Betsy in Lewis, except for the Lewis parish of Lochs, where the registrar translated Bethag as Sophie. He knows, therefore, that a migrant family from Lewis who used the name Sophie was probably from Lochs.

Girls’ names were often created using their fathers’. Some names, like Nicholas and Christian, were given to girls unaltered: others had ‘-ina’ added. William’s daughter might be Wilhelmina (the GROS website noted the spelling ‘William All-Mina’ in Morton in 1769). Alexander’s daughter became Alexandrina. A real Alexandrina I know of called herself Alice instead, whilst some girls just ended up being nicknamed ‘Ina’. Pity poor Johnina Samuelina, who was named after both her grandfathers!

Grandfather, father and son sharing the same name: three generations of William Meikles, pictured in Falkirk in 1949. The child in the picture grew up to have two sons, the oldest also called William (courtesy of John Meikle).

James and Eleanor Ritchie (born Morgan) from the fishing community of Musselburgh, East Lothian. Her grandson, Eleanor Brown, was named after her! The eleventh son, Eleanor’s parents are said to have run out of boys’ names by the time he came along.