Sorley (given name)

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Sorley and Somerled are masculine given names in the English language, Anglicizations of Scottish Gaelic Somhairle and Norse Sumarlidi.

Given name name typically used to differentiate people from the same family, clan, or other social group who have a common last name

A given name is a part of a person's personal name. It identifies a person, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group who have a common surname. The term given name refers to a name bestowed at or close to the time of birth, usually by the parents of the newborn. The term Christian name is the first name that which is given at baptism historically in Christian custom.

English language West Germanic language

English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca. It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse, and to a greater extent by Latin and French.

Scottish Gaelic Celtic language native to Scotland

Scottish Gaelic or Scots Gaelic, sometimes also referred to simply as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Celtic and Indo-European language family, native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century, although a common literary language was shared by Gaels in both Ireland and Scotland down to the 16th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language placenames.

Contents

Etymology

Sorley is an Anglicised form of Somhairle (modernScottish Gaelic pronunciation:  [ˈs̪o.ərˠlə] ), a name mutual to both the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages, which means "summer wanderer". The Gaelic name is a form of the English Somerled, and both names are ultimately derived from the Old Norse Old Norse Sumarliðr. [1] A variant form of Sumarliðr is Sumarliði. [2] A variant form of Somerled is Summerlad, a name altered by folk etymology, derived from the words "summer" and "lad". [3] Somhairle is sometimes Anglicised as Samuel , [4] although these two names are etymologically unrelated (the latter being ultimately of Hebrew origin). [5]

Irish language Gaelic language spoken in Ireland and by Irish people

Irish is a Goidelic language of the Celtic languages family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Irish originated in Ireland and was historically spoken by Irish people throughout Ireland. Irish is spoken as a first language in substantial areas of counties Galway, Kerry, Cork and Donegal, smaller areas of Waterford, Mayo and Meath, and a few other locations, and as a second language by a larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers across the country.

Old Norse North Germanic language

Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements from about the 9th to the 13th centuries.

Folk etymology or reanalysis – sometimes called pseudo-etymology, popular etymology, analogical reformation, or etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reanalyzed as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. Rebracketing is a form of folk etymology in which a word is broken down or "bracketed" into a new set of supposed elements. Back-formation, creating a new word by removing or changing parts of an existing word, is often based on folk etymology.

The Old Norse personal name likely originated as a byname, meaning "summer-traveller", [6] "summer-warrior", [7] in reference to a Viking, [8] or men who took to raiding during the summer months as opposed to full-time raiders. [9] An early occurrence of the term is sumarliða [10] (sumorlida, perhaps meaning "fleet"), [11] recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 871. [12] Another early occurrence of the term is Classi Somarlidiorum, [13] meaning "fleet of the sumarliðar", [14] which is recorded in the 12th-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba , in an account of an attack on Buchan in the mid-10th century. [15] Possibly the earliest record of the personal name occurs in a grant of land in Nottinghamshire by Edgar the Peaceful in 958. [16] Several men with the name are recorded in early Icelandic sources, such as the 10th-century Hrappr Sumarliðason, and his son Sumarliði, Icelanders said to have been of Scottish and Hebridean ancestry. [17] The first historical personage in Orkney with the name was Sumarliði Sigurðsson, Earl of Orkney, eldest son of Sigurðr digri, Earl of Orkney (d. 1014). [18]

<i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> Set of related medieval English chronicles

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated. In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, or Scottish Chronicle, is a short written chronicle of the Kings of Alba, covering the period from the time of Kenneth MacAlpin until the reign of Kenneth II. W.F. Skene called it the Chronicle of the Kings of Scots, and some have called it the Older Scottish Chronicle, but Chronicle of the Kings of Alba is emerging as the standard scholarly name.

Buchan Committee area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Buchan is one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by the council in 1996, when the Aberdeenshire council area was created under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994. The council area was formed by merging three districts of the Grampian Region, Banff and Buchan, Gordon and Kincardine and Deeside. The committee area of Buchan was formed from part of the former district of Banff and Buchan.

List of persons with the given name

Somerled

Somerled, known in Middle Irish as Somairle, Somhairle, and Somhairlidh, and in Old Norse as Sumarliði, was a mid-12th-century warlord who, through marital alliance and military conquest, rose in prominence and seized control of the Kingdom of the Isles. Little is certain of Somerled's origins, although he appears to have belonged to a Norse–Gaelic family of some substance. His father, GilleBride, appears to have conducted a marriage alliance with Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair, son of Alexander I of Scotland, and claimant to the Scottish throne. Following a period of dependence upon David I of Scotland, Somerled first appears on record in 1153, when he supported kinsmen, identified as the sons of Malcolm, in their insurgence against the newly enthroned Malcolm IV of Scotland. Following this unsuccessful uprising, Somerled appears to have turned his sights upon the kingship of the Isles, then ruled by his brother-in-law, Godred Olafsson. Taking advantage of the latter's faltering authority, Somerled participated in a violent coup d'état, and seized half of the kingdom in 1156. Two years later, he defeated and drove Godred from power, and Somerled ruled the entire kingdom until his death.

Somhairle

Somhairle Mac Domhnaill, called by English speakers Sorley McDonnell, was a renowned soldier for the Gaelic cause in Ireland and Scotland during the Thirty Years War and the patron who commissioned two 17th-century manuscript collections of poems, Duanaire Finn and The Book of O'Connor Donn.

Sorley

Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill, Scoto-Irish prince or flaith and chief, was the son of Alexander MacDonnell, lord of Islay and Kintyre (Cantire), and Catherine, daughter of the Lord of Ardnamurchan. MacDonnell is best known for establishing the MacDonnell clan in Antrim and resisting the campaign of Shane O'Neill and the English crown to expel the clan from Ireland. Sorley Boy's connection to other Irish Catholic lords was complicated, but also culturally and familiarly strong: for example, he married Mary O'Neill the daughter of Conn O'Neill.

Sorley MacLean Scottish poet

Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.

Sumarlidi

See also

Citations

  1. ↑ Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 356, 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, pp. ix, 230.
  2. ↑ Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 400.
  3. ↑ Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, p. 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 230, 233.
  4. ↑ Mark 2003, p. 716.
  5. ↑ Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 240–241; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 220.
  6. ↑ Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184; Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 356, 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 230; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.
  7. ↑ McDonald & McLean 1992, pp. 5–7.
  8. ↑ Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398; McDonald & McLean 1992, pp. 5–7.
  9. ↑ Woolf 2007, p. 194; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.
  10. ↑ Woolf 2007, p. 194.
  11. ↑ Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399.
  12. ↑ Woolf 2007, p. 194; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399.
  13. ↑ McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1; Anderson 1922, pp. 468–469.
  14. ↑ Woolf 2007, p. 194.
  15. ↑ McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1.
  16. ↑ Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184.
  17. ↑ Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399; McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1.
  18. ↑ Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.

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References

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