For comparability with other cities around the world, Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, has been defined as the built-up urban area embracing, from north to south, the following 13 municipalities: North Saanich, Sidney, Central Saanich, Saanich, Highlands, Oak Bay, Victoria, Esquimalt, View Royal, Langford, Colwood, Metchosin and Sooke. Of the names of the 111 communities and neighbourhoods that have been identified to date in Greater Victoria, 27 (24.3%) can be found as place names in Scotland or are based on Scottish family names or Scottish words. Of course, some of these names are used in other parts of the British Isles as well, but 14 of them (12.6%) appear to have a unique connection with Scotland, whether directly or indirectly. These statistics are remarkably similar to those for Greater Vancouver.
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:
- Braemar Heights - Braemar is the name of a village in both Aberdeenshire and the Shetland Islands. The Aberdeenshire village is world famous as the venue for the annual Highland Gathering. Patronised by royalty, this Gathering is always held on the first Saturday in September and features a spectacle of highland dancing, pipe bands and highland sporting competitions (tossing the caber, stone putt etc). The illustration here is of Mar Lodge Estate in Braemar, Scotland.
- Burnside, East Burnside-Gorge and West Burnside - Burnside is a popular name in Scotland (two places in Angus and one place in each of Fife, Moray, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian). It has proved to be equally popular in the former colonies.
- Cloak Hill - there is a 114 metre hill in Dalbeattie Forest, Dumfries & Galloway with this name.
- Craigflower - this neighbourhood no doubt derives its name from Craigflower Manor, one of Vancouver Island's first European farming communities. The element 'craig' is frequently found in Scottish place names. 'Craigflower' may have been an invention of Kenneth MacKenzie, the Hudson's Bay Company employee who oversaw the construction of the manor. One wonders whether the name was a Scottish play on 'Mayflower', the name of the ship that brought the first European settlers to New England.
- Gordon Head - The village of Gordon in the Scottish Borders is the origin of the name of this well-known Scottish clan. There are many other places throughout Scotland with Gordon as part of the name, e.g. Gordonstoun, Gordonstown and Gordonsburgh, these places being named, no doubt, for members of the Gordon family. Gordon is also the name of a place on the Isle of Man, probably having been taken there by Scottish settlers. The Gordon tartan seen most frequently is the regimental tartan of the Gordon Highlanders.
- Highlands - possibly recalling the Highlands of Scotland.
- Matheson Lake - the first recorded reference to the Mathesons was in the 13th century, when they held Lochalsh in Wester Ross. The name comes from the Gaelic Macmhathain, 'son of the bear'.
- Milnes Landing - Black (1996), the authority on Scottish family names, says Milne is "a very common surname in Aberdeenshire. Of local origin from residence at or near a corn-mill."
- Mount Douglas - there is a Douglas in South Lanarkshire, the original territorial base of the powerful Douglas family and from which they took their name. The illustration here is the crest of the Douglas Earls of Morton. There is also a suburb of Dundee called Douglas and Angus and there are numerous other places in Scotland with Douglas as part of the name. In addition, Douglas is found in Ireland and on the Isle of Man, probably having been taken there by Scottish settlers. The Saanich neighbourhood was named for the hill. The hill, in turn, honours the second governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Sir James Douglas, and is affectionately known locally as 'Mount Doug' (Wikipedia article on Mount Douglas). Sir James was born in Demerara (now part of Guyana), to a Scottish father and a Creole mother.
- Mount Tolmie - Tolmie is a sept of Clan MacLeod. Black (1996) notes that "John Tolmach took part in a conflict between Macleods and Mackenzies in 1611....the Tolmies of the Hebrides are called Clann Talvaich."
- Otter Point (Shetland Islands).
- Selkirk - a town in the Scottish Borders - see graphic below.
Some of the following districts, neighbourhoods and subdivisions are also likely to have a direct or indirect Scottish connection but these names tend to be associated with other parts of the British Isles as well:
- Belmont Park - Places called Belmont are found in the Scottish Borders, Shetland Islands and South Ayrshire. The name occurs even more frequently in England and is also found in Ireland and Wales. Belmont was an extremely popular choice of name in all English-speaking countries during the nineteenth century. Its origin is ultimately French - 'beautiful mountain'.
- Broom Hill (Aberdeenshire, Angus, Scottish Borders, Dumfries & Galloway and Fife). However, this name is even more commonly encountered in many parts of England, including the city of Bristol and the London borough of Bromley. Broom is also the name of bright, yellow plant that grows in Scotland and many other parts of Europe.
- Cook Street Village - there are places called Cookney and Cookshill in Aberdeenshire, Cookston in Aberdeenshire, Angus and Fife and Cookston Farm in Angus, but Cook is far more common in English place names. Cook is a Scottish as well as an English family name. The Scottish Cooks are a sept of the Stewart clan; their ancestral lands were on the Isle of Bute.
- Dean Park (Fife and Renfrewshire) also two places in England.
- Fairfield (Clackmannanshire, Shetland Islands and Stirling) but Fairfield is even more commonly found throughout England and is also found in Ireland.
- Glen Lake - there are places called Glen in Dumfries & Galloway, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands, as well as two places in Ireland. There are also hundreds of places in both Scotland and Ireland, and a few in England and Wales with Glen as an element in the name. Glen simply means 'valley' in the various Celtic languages (Irish and Scots Gaelic 'gleann'; Welsh and Cornish 'glyn').
- Harris Green - Harris is a large island in the Outer Hebrides (see picture above), famous for its Harris tweed (twilled woollen fabric with unfinished surface). The name also occurs as an element in several English and Irish place names - there is actually a village in Norfolk, England called Harris Green, Harris being a common English surname.
- Mill Hill (Aberdeenshire, as well as other places in Scotland spelt Millhill) but far more commonly found throughout England, including the well-known north London suburb.
- North Park (Dumfries & Galloway) also in West Yorkshire, England.
- Tod Inlet - Tod features widely in place names in Scotland, northern England and south-western England. The Scottish list is quite extensive, the name occurring mainly in eastern and central Scotland, and the Borders. To take Aberdeenshire as an example, there are places called Todfold, Todhead Point, Todhills, Todholes and Todlachie. According to sources cited by Black (1996), Tod and its variant Todd, is "a nickname from the provincial name of the fox." In Scotland, Tod is first recorded as a family name around 1270.
- Victoria and Victoria West - there is a place called Victoria in Perth & Kinross as well as several places in England, all of which no doubt honour Queen Victoria (as does her statue in Glasgow, shown here). The City of Victoria was indeed named for Queen Victoria, albeit indirectly (through Fort Victoria, a Hudson's Bay fort that had been re-named in her honour).
- Willis Point - the origin of this name could be either Scottish or English since its meaning is simply "Willie's son". The name was recorded in Dumfries, Scotland as early as 1214.
Perhaps Victoria's most prominent 'Scottish' landmark is Craigdarroch Castle, the historic 4-storey mansion constructed in the 1890s by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir and which is now open to the public. (The picture of it here is via Wikipedia). The countryside surrounding Greater Victoria is rich in Scottish place names. Examples include Lake Maxwell, Maxwell Point, Mount Erskine and the Athol Peninsula on Saltspring Island to the north and places to the west such as McPhail Point on Saanich Inlet, Oliphant Lake, Finlayson Arm, Mount Finlayson, Mount McDonald and Muir Point. The first major town to the north of Greater Victoria also has a Scottish name - Duncan.
Acknowledgments:
- Wikipedia - Greater Victoria, British Columbia for a list of neighbourhoods.
- Canada & U.S.A. Road Atlas and Event Listings, 1995 (MapArt Publishing, Oshawa) for a map of Victoria & Environs.
- Black, George F. (1996). The Surnames of Scotland. (Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh).
- Scarlett, James D. (1975). The Tartans of the Scottish Clans. (Collins, Glasgow and London).
- Websites, place name gazetteers and published Ordnance Survey maps of British and Irish cities, towns, villages and counties.
© Ian Kendall
If you wish to contact Ian about his research, his e-mail address is iankendall@bigpond.com.
Melbourne, Australia, February 2007
