Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire : Place names

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Dumbarton. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
ALCLUID Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
AL CLUYD William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ARCLUID Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
AR CLUYD William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
DUMBARTON John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
DUNBARTON James Boswell The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (Oxford, Mississippi, 2004).
William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
DUNBRITON Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
DUN BRITTON Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769 (London: Benjamin White, 1776).
DUNBRITTON William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

    • Names for administrative units:

    These names were used for units associated with Dumbarton. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

    Name Unit Type Source
    DUMBARTON 1841 Occupation reporting area 1841 Census of Great Britain, Table [1], 'Occupation Abstract'.
    Constituency (DistBCon) Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
    Modern (2024) Ward Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
    Scottish Burgh/District (Burgh) 1951 Census of Scotland, Table 1, 'Comparison of population, density per 100 acres, and houses with 1931', for 'Burghs, Districts of Counties and CPs'.
    Scottish Parish 1951 Census of Scotland, Table 1, 'Comparison of population, density per 100 acres, and houses with 1931', for 'Burghs, Districts of Counties and CPs'.
    Scottish Poor Law Combination Higginbotham, History of the Workhouse
    Urban Labour Market Great Britain Historical GIS Project
    DUMBARTON ALEXANDRIA AND HELENSBURGH Urban Labour Market Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
    DUMBARTON AND DISTRICT Urban Labour Market Ministry of Labour, Labour Gazette (H.M.S.O.)
    S13003124 Modern (2024) Ward Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
    S741629 Scottish Burgh/District (Burgh)

    NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Dumbarton, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

    • For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
    • Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
    • Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.

    Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Dumbarton, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.