Scottish Place Names
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

For comparability with other cities around the world, Greater Edmonton has been defined as embracing the entire City of Edmonton as well as St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, Sherwood Park, Beaumont and Leduc together with estates and settlements near these centres that are effectively outlying commuter communities. Of the names of the 508 areas, communities and neighbourhoods that have been identified to date in Greater Edmonton, 135 (26.6%) can be found as place names in Scotland or are based on Scottish family names. Of course, some of the names are used in other parts of the British Isles as well, but as many as 76 of them (15.0%) are unique to Scotland or are readily identifiable with places in Scotland that are based on the same names.

Communities and neighbourhoods with names that occur only in Scotland and not elsewhere in the British Isles, and/or are definitely, or most probably, of Scottish origin are:


As in other cities around the world, not all of the above place names are based directly on their namesakes in Scotland. The connection with Scotland may be more indirect in some instances, for example, based on a Scottish surname. This is clearly the case with place names in Edmonton, since most of them commemorate individuals whose family names are Scottish rather than actual places in Scotland.

Some of the following localities may also prove on further investigation to have a link with Scotland. However, these names are also associated with other parts of the British Isles:

A final category of neighbourhood and suburban names comprises places that can be found in Scotland but which, in Edmonton's case, definitely or most probably have no Scottish connection.

There is a long list of parks and sports grounds dotted around the City of Edmonton that sound distinctly Scottish. Examples include Angus Murray Park (Pleasantview), Beatrice Carmichael Park (Downtown), Dr Anne Anderson Park (Britannia), Dr Wilbert McIntyre Park (Strathcona), Duncan Innes Park (King Edward Park), Edinboro Park (Windsor Park), Gowan Park (McKernan), John G. Niddrie Park (Westmount), Louise McKinney Riverfront Park (Boyle Street) and McDougall Park (Downtown). This list is by no means exhaustive. Bridges include Campbell Bridge, Dudley B. Menzies Bridge, Groat Bridge, James MacDonald Bridge, MacKinnon Ravine Bridge and McKenzie Ravine Bridge. Scottish names are also frequently found as street and road names, though most of Edmonton's streets and avenues are numbered. A distinctly Scottish feature of the Edmonton streetscape is its numerous Wynds. For example, Bowen Wynd, Ormsby Wynd or Butterworth Wynd (Mary Butterworth was born in Scotland). Wynd is a Scots word for a narrow street or lane, which leads off a more important thoroughfare.

Judging purely by the names of its communities, neighbourhoods, suburbs, roads, parks and bridges, Edmonton is one of the Canadian cities (along with Calgary, Halifax, Hamilton and Winnipeg) where Scottish influences appear to have been particularly marked. In many cases these influences were indirect since a large number of the place names commemorate early settlers from other parts of Canada whose ancestry was probably Scottish. Nevertheless, Edmonton's place names illustrate the far-reaching effects of the Scottish diaspora of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Acknowledgments:

© Ian Kendall
Melbourne, Australia, July 2004
Revised June 2008

If you wish to contact Ian about his research, his e-mail address is ian.kendall1@bigpond.com.



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