Steven Scougall ([info]sscougall) wrote,
@ 2008-07-10 20:59:00
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Entry tags:names

This is awesome - I am from the woods in a nook
For basically my whole life I've wondered what my surname means. Oh, I've heard some things - like that's from a part of Scotland (we went there once and saw my great-great-great-great-grandfather's grave) and that it goes back at least 800 years (the earliest Scougall in writing was Philip Scughale (or something) in 1204).

But never what it actually *means*. Surnames like Page or Smith or Christensen or Skinner or Baker all have pretty obvious origins. Scougall is very much non-obvious.

But now, thanks to surnamedb.com, I now know that Scougall comes from two roots, the Old Norse 'Skogr' meaning 'wood', and the Really Old English 'halh' meaning a nook/hollow/recess, which formed the place name 'Scoughall'. So - the wood in a nook.

It's nice to finally know.




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cool!
[info]zinegeek
2008-07-11 07:30 am UTC (link)
Hey Steve

That's really cool. I really want to know the origins of my last name (Seaby) but it wasn't listed on the database. If I create an account I can suggest it to them. Seaby is a very uncommon English name but that's about all I know. A taxi driver once told me that names with sea in them are viking names which I thought was very cool but I'm not sure how reliable his information was!

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Re: cool!
[info]sscougall
2008-07-18 03:28 am UTC (link)
Yeah, that site isn't infallible. I actually went there looking for the origins of another name - Zischke. It looks uncommon but there are at least two people at work with the name, and one of them went to school with a few other Zischkes that weren't immediately related to him.

Was Zischke there? Nope.

On a lark I tried Scougall, fully expecting no results.

Seaby looks almost like "By the sea," but that's probably too simple. Another "Sea" name I know is Seawright.

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