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Place names

Today, a place name may seem merely a convenient label to attach to a location, but when it was originally applied to that place, the name must have had a particular significance. Place names can give us an insight into the past and those who populated it, and included in this book is background to some of the place names in the Pentlands.

Place names are evidence of the languages used by the succession of different peoples who lived in the Lothians. Celtic, the language of the early Iron Age British Celts, survives in Pentland names such caep, ‘pointed hill’, as in West Kip (Walk 3). The British Celts saw the Romans arrive and were largely trading allies. In the 7th century the area was conquered by the Northumbrian Angles, and Anglian is reflected in laecc, ‘boggy stream’ (Walk 5). Gaelic names appear later, around the 10th century, as a result of political change. A Pentland example is cloch mead, ‘the stone at the middle of the pass’ (Walk 4). From the 11th century to the 18th century estate and farming names began to dominate, although they often reflect earlier origins.