How Ordnance Survey helped trace the roots of British place names

Ordnance Survey issued a small pamphlet, The most common Gaelic words used on the Ordnance Survey Maps, early in the 20th century for use with the one-inch maps of Scotland.

In 1935, the Board of Celtic Studies and the University of Wales compiled a similar booklet, The most common Welsh words used on the Ordnance Survey Maps, for use with maps of Wales. This was reprinted in 1949.

Later it was decided to increase the scope of the Gaelic names pamphlet, so the Scottish Geographical Society undertook a complete recompilation and published an enlarged edition in 1951 which included a list of Scandinavian elements used in Scottish place names.

In 1968, Ordnance Survey produced an A5 booklet, Place names on maps of Scotland and Wales, which combined revised versions of both earlier publications. The booklet underwent several reprints, with the last reprint published in 1995.

In the booklet, Ordnance Survey thanks Dr W F H Nicolaisen of the University of Edinburgh's School of Scottish Studies for his advice on the Gaelic and Scandinavian elements, William Matheson, senior lecturer in the Department of Celtic Studies at the University of Edinburgh for the revised guide to Gaelic pronunciation, and the Board of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales for their help with the Welsh glossary.

In 2003, Ordnance Survey decided to update the content of the booklet, to extend the coverage to include the Scots language, and to publish the revised information electronically as a series of web pages and PDF files.  The resulting series of Guides were published in 2004, with minor revisions to the Gaelic Guide in 2005.  They are not the definitive work on language influences in place names in Great Britain, but more a guide to common elements arising from Gaelic, Scandinavian, Scots and Welsh.

Ordnance Survey has benefited from the skill and expertise of various experts in reviewing the previous material and preparing these Web pages.  In the case of the Welsh section they are Professor Hywel Wyn Owen and Gruffudd Prys of the University of Wales in Bangor.  For the Gaelic, Scots and Scandinavian sections they are Dr Anke-Beate Stahl, Dr Simon Taylor, Peadar Morgan and the Gaelic Names Liaison Committee.