Regional Studies

There are books and pamphlets about the place-names of most areas of Scotland. Many of these are extremely untrustworthy and misleading, and some are quite frankly not worth the paper they are printed on. One such is J. Milne’s Gaelic Place-Names of Edinburgh and the Lothians (1912, inexplicably republished by Langsyne in late 20th century [no date]; another is H. Cameron Gillies, The Place-Names of Argyll, described by Ian Fraser as ‘an eccentric curiosity’.

Here is a selection of some of the better, more trustworthy regional studies, as well as some excellent unpublished material. For more details of works published before 1989, see A Reader’s Guide to the Place-Names of the United Kingdom, J. Spittal & J. Field, 1990.

Scotland North of Forth is surveyed by WJ Watson in CPNS (online here). For Watson’s surveys of other parts of Scotland, see below.

For a list of digital resources, please visit Place-names – Scotland – By Area (Regional Digital Toponymic Resources Organised by Pre-1975 Counties + Glasgow). This link will take you to the relevant part of the Useful Links section on this website.