| Steven Scougall ( @ 2008-07-10 20:59:00 |
| 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.