• Skua@kbin.earth
    10·
    9 days ago

    Examples of this in the cities of Scotland that we can actually trace the etymologies of:

    • Perth: “Copse”. Perth is in a forested area
    • Aberdeen: “Mouth of Devona’s river”. Devona was an old Celtic goddess, and Aberdeen actually lies between the mouths of two rivers named for her
    • Inverness: “Mouth of the roaring river”. Inver- derives from the Gaelic branch of the Celtic languages, whereas Aber- comes from the Brythonic branch. It’s at the mouth of the river Ness, which is one of the fastest-discharging rivers in the UK
    • Glasgow: “green hollow”. “Hollow” here is in the sense of a small valley. Glasgow is one of the rainiest cities in Europe and also has a remarkably temperate climate for being at the same latitude as Moscow, so it probably was very green before it became a city
      • Skua@kbin.earth
        1·
        3 days ago

        Yes and no. Both of the major rivers at Aberdeen — the Don and the Dee — are derived from the name of Devona. The original settlement of Aberdeen was around the Don rather than the Dee. The bit around the Dee is “New Aberdeen” (or at least, it was “new” in the 12th century). While the Dee > Deen connection is an intuitive one, Don > Deen also keeps the consonants consistent

        But also, it felt worthwhile to dig into what the names within each name meant too, which is why I gave “mouth of the roaring river” instead of “mouth of the Ness”