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.
51 place names
“the white mill”
“bear island”, from Old Norse Bjarnarey
from Old Norse Hjaltland, “hilt land”
Common place-name elements
Many names are built from a few common words. Pick one to see every place that uses it.
- dùn · fort, fortress (4)
- loch · lake, loch (3)
- ceann · head, end (2)
- gleann · glen, valley (2)
- inbhir · mouth of a river, estuary (2)
- mòr · big, large, great (2)
- sròn · nose; promontory, point (2)
- baile · village, town (1)
- bàn · white, pale, fair (1)
- càrn · cairn (1)
- eaglais · church (1)
- lios · garden; enclosure; fortified place (1)
- muileann · mill (1)
- port · port, harbour (1)
- ruadh · red (1)
- tobar · well, spring (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).