Scottish Place Names
- Kingston, Jamaica

For comparability with other cities around the world, Kingston has been defined as the entire Corporate Area including and surrounding the Parish of Kingston together with immediately adjacent urban and semi-urban areas but excluding Spanish Town. This area takes in the Palisadoes on which Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport are situated and extends from Bull Bay, Dallas Mountain and Gordon Town in the east to Portmore and its suburbs in the west, and the Red Hills and Stony Hill in the north. Of the names of the 203 districts, neighbourhoods and suburbs that have been identified to date in Greater Kingston, 50 (24.6%) can be found in Scotland or are based on Scottish family names. Of course, many of the names are used in other parts of the British Isles as well, but at least 21 of them (10.3%) appear to have a direct or indirect link with Scotland.

It may surprise some readers that the names of so many neighbourhoods and subdivisions in the Jamaican capital have a Scottish connection. Jamaica was at one stage a popular destination for settlers from all parts of the British Isles, including a large number of people from Scotland. In 1786 Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, was in fact on the point of immigrating to Jamaica in order to escape his financial and other worries. However, the success of the Kilmarnock edition of his poems and the acclaim of his admirers induced him to stay in Scotland.

Picture of Kingston via Wikimedia.

Neighbourhoods, districts and outlying suburbs 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:

Stirling Castle

The names of some of the following localities may also prove on further investigation to have a direct or indirect Scottish connection but these names (many of which are purely descriptive in nature) are used in other parts of the British Isles as well:

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



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