Meaning of street names studied

By Denise Glass
Tayside reporter, BBC Scotland news website

Crichton Street was named after a surgeon whose house was torn down

What's in a name?

Well you can uncover a lot about the history of a place by studying its name and those of its streets, according to organisers and guests at a conference in Dundee.

The Scottish Place-name Society held a meeting at Abertay University and heard from speakers from Latvia and Northern Ireland.

Also sharing his thoughts was Dundee city archivist Iain Flett giving a talk on Baillies, battles and banks - street name origins in Dundee.

He said: "In Dundee, we've got Camperdown which is the great battle by Admiral Duncan against the Dutch, which many people think was more important than the later battle of Trafalgar with Nelson because if Camperdown had been lost that would have been very serious for Britain and the French Revolutionary wars."

The city also has streets which commemorate its whaling history, for example Baffin Street (linked to Baffin's Bay in the Arctic region) and East Whale Lane.

Famous faces have been commemorated. The Kingsway was meant to honour the monarch at the time of its planning, which was Edward VII, but it was not completed until the reign of George V.

They're like very old, important artefacts in our landscape and in our language Dr Simon Taylor

Crichton Street is named after Dr John Crichton. The story goes that the surgeon's home was in the way of a new street that was to connect the Nethergate and the harbour.

He finally agreed to sell his home to the council but on the condition that they named the new street after him.

Dr Simon Taylor, convener of the Scottish Place-name Society, said: "Place names are a very important part of our cultural heritage and in Scotland we have a particularly diverse cultural and linguistic heritage, which is one of the most complicated linguistic heritages in any northern European country and that is reflected in our place names.

"We've got about five different languages contributing to place names throughout the country and some of these place names were formed before our first documents appear.

"They're like very old, important artefacts in our landscape and in our language.

"They shed so much light on different aspects of history - social history, farming, judicial history, with our 'Gallows' place names etc.

"If they [residents] are aware of how old a place name is and how it came to get its name and what it's cultural references are it deepens people's awareness of their environment and their culture."

Dr Taylor feels that place names are a cultural resource that have not been fully explored in Scotland compared with countries like England and Northern Ireland.

Different languages have made up the place names of Scotland

However, Mr Flett believes it is something that more people are starting to ponder.

"What we find is that people once they've done their family history then go into the history of their house, and once they start thinking about the history of their house they start thinking about the street that it's on," he said.

He believes there will be a boom in interest next year when people from all over the world with Scottish heritage visit the country during the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations.

Mr Flett has this warning and advice for them.

"Along with the main streets of Dundee you had wynds and closes, many of which have vanished from sight now, but you can still pick them up in the histories," he said.

"In many cases they'll be looking for streets that are no longer there."

Different streets, which had the same names, are also something to look out for.

Mr Flett said: "Anywhere in Scotland you'll find that as areas expand, particularly like Dundee and Glasgow, you've got double street names.

"So if you're doing a family history it's doubly confusing in Dundee because they decided in 1907 to re-name streets that had double names.

"So that's going to make it very difficult for the Scottish genealogists returning next year because they might think that their street has been demolished, whereas in fact it was just renamed in the early 20th Century.

"For example, everywhere in Scotland had an Albert Street, well, there's part of Dundee which used to be separate called Lochee, and Albert Street was renamed Atholl Street.

"So people who are looking for their ancestors in Albert Street, Lochee, now need to know that they should be looking at Atholl Street instead."