Dundee’s vineyards, Edinburgh’s desert and Aberdeen’s skyscrapers
...and other bizarre Scottish place names around the world
ABERDEEN, Hong Kong, is filled with skyscrapers; Dundee, Oregon, has row upon row of vineyards, and Glasgow, a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, only has around 60 inhabitants.
Cast your eye down the index of an atlas and you will quickly spot some of the thousands of place names inspired by Scottish villages, islands, cities and towns or the people from them.
If you want to live in Elgin, for example, you have more than 25 choices of location including North-East Scotland, New Zealand and Australia.
And in South Africa alone there are more than 550 places with Scottish names.
To discover an Edinburgh on a Caribbean island peppered with palm trees and basking in tropical temperatures, or a Stirling thousands of miles away in a remote part of Canada, seems jarring to the native Scot.
So what are the stories behind these familiar names in far-flung places?
Historian and researcher Elspeth Wills has delved into the history of these names – and the people or places they honour. Her book, Abbotsford to Zion: The Story of Scottish Place Names Around the World, explores the influence that adventurous Scots have had overseas – and uncovers some truly remarkable tales along the way.
Among the stories of explorers, railway engineers, missionaries and entrepreneurs are shocking truths and surprising feats of endeavour.
Here we take a look at just a few of the Scottish town and village names found around the world.
ABERDEEN
MEMORIES of the Granite City have been conjured up in some rather colourful places over the years.
Aberdeen, Washington State, was named after the Scottish city in 1884 because of its position near two rivers.
Early resident Jean Stewart recalled: ‘I wrote a letter to one of the papers suggesting that the new settlement be called Aberdeen, since it was at the mouth of the rivers Wishkah and Chehalis, just as Aberdeen in Scotland is at the mouth of the Don and the Dee.’
Today, Aberdeen is home to the Kurt Cobain Memorial Park. The musician, who died at the age of 27, spent most of his life in the small town. He even wrote a song named Aberdeen.
Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong and Aberdeen Island in Sierra Leone, meanwhile, were named after a member of the Aberdeen family.
George Hamilton-Gordon, Fourth Earl of Aberdeen, is believed to have been the inspiration for both names during his time as foreign secretary.
EDINBURGH
THERE are nine places called Edinburgh throughout the world, including three in the US – a town in Indiana, a town in New York State and an area of Missouri named Edinburg.
There is also a rather sinister link between the Scottish capital and Jamaica.
Edinburgh Castle on the Caribbean island has a darker past than its Scottish namesake. The estate, with its now ruined two-storey tower house, was built by Lewis Hutchinson, a Scottish slave owner with medical training.
Hutchinson became known as ‘the mad doctor’ after he began killing off travellers passing by the remote spot, stealing their belongings and forcing his slaves to dispose of the bodies in a sinkhole on his land.
Elsewhere, an Edinburgh was created in the middle of the Afghan desert. Forward operating base Edinburgh, in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province, was operated by both British and US armed forces. It was closed down in 2012.
ROTHESAY
IT is often hard to agree on a name. For years there had been a great debate among members of a small community in New Brunswick, Canada, about what to call the nameless settlement next to the Kennebecasis River.
But a royal visit from 19-year-old Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1869 finally ended the argument once and for all.
Queen Victoria’s son, whose Scottish title was Duke of Rothesay, was the first member of the British Royal Family to visit North America. Some local historians claim he suggested the name Rothesay because he liked it. The Kennebecasis railway station, where Prince Edward arrived, was also renamed Rothesay.
DUNBLANE
TO wander through Dunblane, Bruce County, Ontario, is like walking through the set of some long forgotten Western.
It was once a farming community but when the mills closed, shortly followed by the school, it wasn’t long before everyone left. Now almost all that survives is a disused church. Some of Canada’s biggest cities and towns have Scottish place names, but two of its three Dunblanes are now categorised as ghost towns.
In North America it was common for people to leave towns and villages as economic fortunes changed. Some of the settlements with Scottish links are now completely abandoned. The creation of the trans-Canadian pipeline and the reduction of rail traffic through Dunblane, Saskatchewan, eventually also saw that town reduced to nothing but a name on a sign.
INVERNESS
SOMETIMES the exact reason behind a place name is lost to history. For example, there are at least two explanations as to how Inverness in Stockholm got its name.
One is that Scottish mercenaries fighting for the Swedish army during the 17th century had barracks there, far enough away from central Stockholm so they would not disturb the peace.
The other is that a Swede had visited the Highlands and liked Inverness so much he decided to name his country estate after it.
ST ANDREWS
THE Act of Union of 1707 opened up the lucrative English colonies to Scots looking to make their fortune.
Many set sail for Caribbean islands where they found an existing community of Scots who had first arrived as labourers. However, plantation owners found that it was cheaper to import slaves from Africa.
By 1800, Jamaica had 300,000 slaves overseen by 10,000 Scots and 10,000 Englishmen.
Many of the sugar and slave plantations in Jamaica acquired Scottish names – Glasgow, Argyle, Glen Islay, Dundee, Fort William, Montrose, Dumbarton, Old Monklands and Mount Stewart.
Many wealthy white people took up residence in St Andrew Parish.
DUNDEE
AT this time of year Dundee, like many parts of Scotland, can be bitterly cold. But even a chilly December morning on the banks of the Tay is not as cold as an average day on Dundee Island, situated off the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
The island, which is almost permanently covered in snow and ice, was discovered by Sir James Clark Ross. He roughly charted it and spent New Year’s Day 1843 on its shores. In 1892 a fleet of Dundee whalers sailed on an exploratory trip to the Antarctic. Thomas Robertson, the captain of the whaler Active, named the island after his ship’s home port. He also named the stretch of water between it and Joinville Island, the Firth of Tay.
KELSO
SOMETIMES a Scottish-sounding place name has nothing to do with Scotland at all.
Kelso in California has nothing to do with the Roxburghshire town but was instead named after railway worker John Kelso. His name was put in a hat along with those of two other workers. Thanks to the luck of the draw, what had been known as Siding 16 on the new railway between Utah and Los Angeles got its name in 1905.
Meanwhile, the ghost town of Alva, Wyoming, was named not after the Clackmannanshire town but after Alva S Bender, the first postmaster.
There are Morningsides in Canada, the US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. But they were not necessarily named after the Edinburgh suburb of the same name. Morningside was a popular choice for locations on the side of a hill that get the early sun.
TOBERMORY
THERE are more than 3,000 miles between Tobermory, Ontario, at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron, and Tobermory on Mull, yet they appear remarkably similar. The Canadian community, surrounded by crystal clear waters, went through several names before one finally stuck.
In 1820 it was known as Collins Harbour and three decades later renamed Townplot of Bury.
However, for years Scottish fisherman had referred to the settlement as Tobermory because it reminded them of Mull. Despite the vast distance between the two places, they still share the same name.