Celtic Place-Name Explainer
See what Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx place names mean, how to say them, and where they are.
111 place names
“hillside of the bard’s son”
“west Meath”
“lone ridge”
named after the medieval kingdom of Uí Failghe
named after the god Lugh
from cnoc “hill” and long “ship” or “house”
named after the Loígis, a people living in the area in the Middle Ages
“stone fort”
“the river goddess”
“new bridge”
“small lake”
“bridge of the Bandan”, the River Bandon
“middle promontory”
“port of Laois”
“the headlands”
Common place-name elements
Many names are built from a few common words. Pick one to see every place that uses it.
- cill · church (8)
- baile · town, settlement (7)
- dún · fort (6)
- áth · ford (5)
- droichead · bridge (4)
- inis · island (4)
- ros · wood; headland (4)
- ceann · head, headland (3)
- cúige · province (3)
- mainistir · monastery, abbey (3)
- ard · height (2)
- carraig · rock (2)
- daingean · fortress (2)
- gleann · glen, valley (2)
- leitir · hillside (2)
- nua · new (2)
- port · landing place, harbour; bank; fortified place, stronghold (2)
- ráth · ringfort (2)
- trá · strand, beach (2)
- beag · small, little (1)
- béal · mouth (1)
- bealach · way, pass (1)
- bearna · gap (1)
- caiseal · stone fort (1)
Go deeper than the map
blas. teaches the language behind the places: vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Free to start.
Meanings and glosses are adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the other sources cited on each page. Map and area data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).