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Re: The true origin of the Gillespie nam
Posted by: Michčil MacThņmhais Date: February 22, 2001 at 00:14:04
In Reply to: Re: The true origin of the Gillespie nam by Bill Gillespie of 4524

Yes it could and I do believe that this is the correct translation. While you present a coherent and logical interpretation of the meanings of the names Gillespie and MacGillivray, it seemed to me some me that something had been missed.
While in truth "with many Scots names, the origin of A name is linked to that of a profession", we cannot state with certainity what function was performed in this case. The profession may or may not have been that of a lawyer.

The following taken from MacBain's Etymological Dictionary and An Stņrdąta Briathrachais Gąidhlig at the Sabhal Mór Ostaig site.

bishop       easbaig       masc.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/cgi-bin/sbg on "bishop"

easbuig (not asbuig)

a bishop, Irish easbog, Old Irish espoc, epscop, Welsh esgob, Breton eskop; from Latin episcopus, whence English bishop.

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb16.html

So a resonable interpretation of Gillespie would be "serveant of the bishop".

brąth

judgement, gu brąth, for ever (pron. gu brąch) "till Judgment", so Irish, Old Irish brįth, judgment, Welsh brawd, Middle Breton breut, Gaulish bratu-, *brātu-; *brā, *bera, judge, decide, from Indo-European bher, in the sense of "say", as in abair. The Irish barn, judge, and Welsh barn, judgment, are hence, and may be compared to Greek @Gfrc/n, @Gfrc/nes, soul, phrenology. Hence also breath, or breith *br@.t-, q.v. The sense "conflagration" given in the Dict. is due to "Druidic" theorisings, and is imaginary.

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb04.html

breath

judgment, so Irish, Old Irish breth, *br@.tā, Welsh bryd, Gaulish vergo-bretus, *br@.to-s. For root, See brąth. Spelt also breith. (Note: prounounced "bray")

http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb05.html#breith

In modern Scots Gaelic this last form (as a feminine noun) is used as a word for "judgement". It also means several other things (see below). In the genitive it would be aspirated, and would be spelled bhreith, pronounced "vray".


breith              fem.

Judgement, assessment, birth, breath (opinion), calve, catching, catching, discrimination, estimation (reckoning of value), interpretation, nativity, parturition, sentence (judicial).

For our purposes we can eliminate catching, catching, birth, calve, nativity and parturition.

This leaves us with judgement, breath (opinion), assessment, estimation (reckoning of value), interpretation and sentence (judicial).

All of these are clearly legal terms and all are related in the way that the same Beurla word can mean several similar but yet different things. So in the case of the MacGillvray, a reasonable interpretation of the name would not only be "serveant of (the) judgement", but we could substitute any of the other words and they would work just as well. All these meanings have to do with the result of something that occurred before a court. I may be stretching things a bit, but it seems to me that we could interpret the name to mean "serveant of the (court's) sentence/opinion" As serveants obey, it seems logical that the MacGillivray ancestor obeyed a judicial sentence.

I merely present a slightly different emphasis on the linguistic analysis. While what you say is true in so far as it goes, both ideas are merely conjectures far removed in time from the people and naming involved.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/cgi-bin/sbg


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