The names Hume and Home are of the same enormously powerful borders family. Descended from the Saxon Princes of Northumberland was Cospatrick, Earl of Dunbar, and his second son, Patrick, is believed to be the originator of the family. His descendant Aldan was the first recorded as having taken on the name of Home, Berwickshire, […]
The name Watson derives from Walter along with many others such as Wat, Watt MacWattie, Macouat and MacWatson. The name is fairly common throughout Scotland (listed 20th most common in 2003) and England, but is more strongly associated with certain areas such as Aberdeen and Kinkardineshire. The Watsons are linked to the Forbes clan in […]
Legend says that a Saxon called Leving gave his name to the lands in West Lothian and they became Livingston. The people of the area took this as their family name. Four generations on Sir William Livingston of Livingston fought beside King David II at the Battle of Durham in the 1346 attack into England. […]
The family name comes from the Leslie lands of Aberdeenshire and was to become famous in Germany, Poland, France and Russia. An Hungarian noble named Bartholf (or Batholomew) settled in this area and in the 12th century one of his sons obtained a charter for the Barony of Lesly from William the Lion. Sir Andrew […]
The surname Aikenhead is of early medieval Scottish origin. It is a locational name from the old barony of Aikenhead in Lanarkshire. The place Aikenhead would have originally gained it’s name from the person who owned it, their name was probably “Aiken” or “Aitken”. The ‘head’ part of the name would have come from the […]
The surname Baillie most probably derives from the French term for bailif which was a name given to an officer who managed estates. It is a common misconception that the name derives from the surname Bailliol but was changed after the wars of independence due to it’s connection with the unpopular Balliol kings. Baillies are […]
This surname comes from the lands or barony of Ralston near Paisley, in Renfrewshire. It is said that a younger son of one of the Earls of Fife, Ralph, was given a grant for the lands of Ralston from the High Steward of Scotland, however, these claims have been refuted by some, stating that the […]
It is thought that the ancestry of this family began with a Viking warrior who decided to settle in Renfrewshire in the ninth century. There are a number of theories as to the creation of the name this Viking’s descendants took. After fighting so ferociously in a battle, an early family member was praised by […]
The Murray family is descended from Freskin, who is thought to be a Flemish knight who flourished in the 12th century. Granted lands in West Lothian by David I, he and his sons intermarried with the house of Moray to consolidate their power. The descendants of this family were designated “de Moravia”, which in Lowland […]
Between the 6th and 9th centuries, Danes lived in one of the little kingdoms of Lincolnshire in England to which, after the Norman Conquest, Baldric of Lindsay came to be tenant of the manors under the Earl of Chester. The Lindsay name was already well known across England at this time. In 1120 Sir Walter […]
