'Clan' Gunn origin
Ptolemy's map issues and the proto-Gunn name, refined and revisited -
1) Above is the Blau map with clear definition of what is accepted as being Dunnet Head and Noss Head. 2) Around Dunnet Head we have the Kournaovioi / Cornavii. Skene in 1836 gives their area as being Strathnaver and Kaithness. So we have Courns / Kourns living in the first century in what is now viewed as the Gunn area.... The similarity in sound of the names is, at the very least, of interest as a possible origin for the name Gunn as we now have it... Etymology? Possibly 'people of the horn' - consider the coastline. And consider the possible origin of Cornwall...
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Time to consider Ptolemy's first century Scottish map as it applied to the Gunn area. See the above Blau version of 1654; the tribes are given as Cornabij (more normally Cornavii), Carini, Carnonacae, and Creones / Cernotes. They are accepted as being, at the very least, linked tribes. Skene in 1836 has them as • Kournaovioi • Kairinoi • Karnones • Kreones Say the first part of the names of the tribes who inhabited Gunn lands in the first century - Kourn, Kairin, Karn and Kreon - and they all sound quite linked to the name Gunn some 1500 or so years later... It's not impossible to believe that a proto-Gunn name was around in the first century... **** The K-G and general spelling issues are irrelevant as the Scottish societies were illiterate and Ptolemaic textual corruption over time will also make life difficult; it is the sound which matters. The second part of the tribal names concern Latin issues of making plurals. |
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