Gaelic place name and anglicisation

[m-sophie]

Halò!

A few words about me, to start with: My name is Marie-Sophie and I am a student from Germany and I love learning languages. When I visited Scotland, I made therefore sure, not to go home without a Gaelic Course;)

I am also a writer and I am currently writing a novel which takes place in Scotland. The first few chapters are set in a small village in Northern Scotland (I have a place like Lairg in mind), for which I now need a name. As my story is completely fictional, I want to “design” a believable name, which is also only fictional. On no account, I want to use a real place name.
As my Gaelic is more or less on A1 level at the moment, it is really hard to invent a correct name on my own. Furthermore, my other problem is the question, how to anglicise it in the end.
Could someone help me with that, please?
I am looking for a believable name for a little town in Northern Scotland. Of course, I would like it to have a meaning, but I am not adamant about what exactly it should mean, the word just should sound nice in the end. I am thinking of a description of nature/landscape/surroundings (as I take it, this is the case with most real place names, isn’t it?) or a characterisation of some sort (the town’s people are not especially friendly to the slightly weird protagonist and she is desperate to leave).
And is it right, that I would then need to anglicise the Gaelic word(s)? I have absolutely no idea, how that is done properly. Are there any instructions for that somewhere?
I hope, that someone can help me, how I should start this process.

Thank you very much in advance!

All the best,
Marie-Sophie

[GunChleoc]

A lot of the place names just describe what the land looks like, so you get a lot of repetition. So, reusing an existing place name shouldn't be a problem if it falls into that category.

It is up to you wheher you want to anglicise the name.

[m-sophie]

Thank you for your answer!
But I think, that I'd like to create a new one, though.
So, if I wanted to anglicise it, how would I do that?

[faoileag]

There are no rules for Anglicising Gaelic names - names have been translated literally, or created afresh, or Gaelic sounds have been given approximate English spelling, usually depending on who was doing the 'naming' or mapmaking - English speakers, Gaelic speakers, locals, officials from elsewhere etc.

Depending on where you want your village to be, e.g. on a hill or by the coast or on a river, you can give it a suitable geographical name. Tell us where it is, and we can offer suggestions.

[m-sophie]

I am looking for the method, where a Gaelic sound is given approximate English spelling. In this way, the Gaelic origin will still be visible in the final place name. The problem is, that this process doesn't come naturally to me, as I am no native English speaker.
It is a village of a few hundred inhabitants, in the middle of the Northern Highlands, about equally distant from both coasts. Due to its central location it is quite easily accessed, already in earlier times, which is a reason for its size.
It lies at the bottom of a few low-rise hills, by which the place is surrounded completely in all directions. Nearby is quite a large coniferous forest. An important industrial sector for the region is sheep farming.
I thought that the name maybe could have something to do with the hills, as they also are of some significance to the story.

[GunChleoc]

How about "Coille nan Cnoc"? Forest of the hills.

[Níall Beag]

I am looking for the method, where a Gaelic sound is given approximate English spelling. In this way, the Gaelic origin will still be visible in the final place name. The problem is, that this process doesn't come naturally to me, as I am no native English speaker.

It's not a process that comes naturally to anyone, I'm afraid. A great many Gaelic placenames were "anglicised" into the Scottish Anglo-Saxon tongue, not the English one. Modern names are often the pronunciation of a Scots word as though it were an English one, and the Scots word was an approximation of the Gaelic pronunciation several centuries ago, but both Scots and Gaelic have changed since then, so the forms have diverged. It is extremely rare for an "English" name to be a transparent version of the Gaelic.

[faoileag]

Niall is right. No real 'system' you can apply.

Having said that, if you just write the Gaelic name as an English/Scots speaker might try to capture the Gaelic pronunciation, it's usually roughly phonetic and simplified. It may change over time, but its a start.

If you take Gun Chleoc's suggestion of Coille nan Cnoc, it might be anglicised as 'Killiecrock'.

See the website Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba for ideas. http://www.gaelicplacenames.org/index.php

This is what I got for 'coille'. Most names with Coille are translated as 'wood' but there's one phonetic one, 'Killie'.
http://www.gaelicplacenames.org/databas ... le&lang=en

[akerbeltz]

In what period is this set?