| SURNAMES OF SHETLAND AND ORKNEY |
| INTRODUCTION As the description of the Chronology of Shetland, and the data from the Research Studies sections of this site have clearly shown, the history and heritage of the Shetland Islands is closely intertwined with that of the nearby (but closer to the Scottish Mainland) Orkney Islands. Both were key elements in the Earldom of Orkney and passed from the hands of rulers in Norway to those in Scotland in 1469 and 1468 respectively. The records indicate that it was not long for some Scots to "set up shop" in Orkney before the end of the 15th century. Over the succeeding years they came in increasing numbers to Orkney, and in a stepping stone fashion then to Shetland. In other words after 1469 those with Scottish surnames moved either directly from the Scottish Mainland, or, more commonly it would seem, via those who had been born in Orkney but were of Mainland descent. By the 1500s the surname Sinclair was very common in Caithness on the Mainland, as well as in Orkney and in Shetland. |
| TYPES OF SURNAMES The weight of evidence appears to support the contention that there were two primary classes of surnames in Shetland and Orkney post 1468. 1) SCOTTISH - those whose origins were in Mainland Scotland and whose name could be categorized into various categories such as occupational (e.g., Smith), patronymic (e.g., Wilson), and place names (e.g., Leask), and other (e.g., Bain which means "fair" in Gaelic). Presumably most of the emigrants from the Mainland would have been primarily of Celtic (including Pictish) stock, plus some of Anglo - Saxon or Norman ancestry. A smaller number would possibly have been descendants of the Viking raiders and settlers reflecting their settlement patterns in the northern Mainland (as seen on the map in the section on Research Studies). None the less, they would have born names that we would today term (and what George F. Black who wrote, "The Surnames of Scotland" would also agree were) Scottish. 2) ABORIGINAL - those whose origins predated the arrival of immigrants from the Scottish Mainland. There is a remote possibility that some native Pict occupants of both Orkney and Shetland survived the Viking raids and merged with those of Norse descent. Many, including Dr. Jim Wilson whose work has been discussed in the Research Studies section, and is co-administrator of the present Project, opt for the "elimination of all Pict males" possibility (leaving open the likelihood that the women were captured and given the opportunity to become wives of the incoming Norse). What is striking, however, is that whether a few male Picts survived the Viking onslaught or not, the aboriginal surnames of Orkney and Shetland are significantly different. a) ORKNEY - In his PNAS paper cited earlier, Dr. Wilson separated the Scottish and "aboriginal" surnames in order to analyze the Celtic and Norse components of Orkney. As expected those with Scottish surnames were likely to have Celtic (Hg1, R1b) DNA haplotypes; whereas those with aboriginal names tended to have Norse (Hg2, I and Hg3, R1a) DNA haplotypes. Since the term "aboriginal" was not defined in the paper, Dr. Wilson has clarified that by this term he meant those with "place" surnames - virtually all of which are Norse (e.g., Isbister). He did not include the "son" names since in Orkney there is less clarity as to their origins. b) SHETLAND - There do not appear to be any "place" surnames in Shetland that did not originate in Orkney. Shetland received a significant flow of immigrants with Scottish surnames from Orkney, and many Aboriginal Orkney names are also represented. However, an aboriginal name in Shetland would appear to almost invariably carry the suffix "son" - entirely different from Orkney whose history from the earliest days of Viking settlement is almost indistinguishable from that of Shetland. |
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| Examples of Scottish and Aboriginal Surnames of Orkney and Shetland with Statistical Information on the Surnames that Occur Most Frequently: |
