Scottish Place Names Around the World

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh was called "Duneidin" in earlier times.

As Scots emigrated around the world they often reminded themselves of home by giving Scottish place names to the locations in which they settled. Most of these Scottish names are found in North America and Australia / New Zealand. 50% of the suburban names in Dunedin have a Scottish connection - and Dunedin itself is the old name for Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city. But they also pop up with unfailing regularity in sub-Saharan Africa (there are at least 550 towns, suburbs, villages, mountains, rivers and other topographical features in South Africa alone) and Asia (Aberdeen in Hong Kong is perhaps the best known).

For a comprehensive background to Scottish place names around the world, see the Overview page.

To find where many other Scottish locations can be found elsewhere than Scotland around the world, go to:

Aberdeen to Elgin Fife to Oban Orkney to Stirling

Toponymist researcher Ian Kendall has provided another perspective. He is taking cities and towns around the world and finding the origins of the names used in their districts and suburbs. He has supplied the Scottish-related names found in a number of locations around the world. The current cities/towns are:





Where else would you like to go in Scotland?


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