Some Anthropo-toponym Structures in D&G

I was recently having a look at Sofia Evemalm’s PhD thesis Theory and practice in the coining and transmission of place-names: A study of the Norse and Gaelic anthropo-toponyms of Lewis. It has a very useful introduction to anthropo-toponyms, i.e. place-names containing personal names. Her observation that “perhaps the most significant result of this study is the fact that it has been able to demonstrate that event-naming [[as opposed to e.g. ownership]] has been seriously underestimated in the analysis of anthropo-toponyms” (p. 272) is certainly borne out in the Name Book entries for Dumfries and Galloway place-names. Evemalm also proposes an useful ‘name-semantic classification of anthropo-toponyms’ (pp. 219-238, summarised at p. 238).

Blaeu Place-Names by the Numbers

The NLS hosts ‘a list of all the place names on the Blaeu maps’ from the Atlas of Scotland (1654) which has been compiled by Bob Henrey. These are split over five pages (A-D, E-H, I-M, N-Q, R-Z). There’s also a keyword search available on this page. I thought it would be useful to put this data into a spreadsheet so that it could be navigated and queried a little more easily. You can access it here: Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654. Below are some numbers and ideas for how the database could be used.