Resumen de Occupational Surnames in the Older Scots Language in their Lexicographical Environment
Much of the research into Scottish surnames focuses on names coined in the Gaelic language, and is rooted firmly in the socio-historical context of kinship ties and clan lineage. By comparison, the occupational surnames coined in the Older Scots language in the lowland burghs have received little scholarly attention, and although information on many individual names can be found in George F. Black’s ‘The Surnames of Scotland’, there is no distinct corpus of this category of names. This paper will focus on Scots occupational surnames within their lexicographical environment. The 12-volume Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (covering the period from 1100 to 1700) will be used as the basis for establishing a corpus of occupational surnames. This will allow the development of specifically Scots names such as Bremner, Cordiner, Dempster, Falconer, Ferrier, Grieve and Lorimer to be examined against the wider context of occupational terms such as aulnager, coalhewer, guster, lapider, palfurner and pargener which are also attested in the Older Scots lexicon but did not evolve into hereditary surnames.
