Sorley is an
Anglicised form of Somhairle (modern Scottish Gaelic pronunciation:[ˈs̪o.ərˠlə]), a name mutual to both the
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic languages, which means "summer wanderer". The Gaelic name is a form of the English Somerled, and both names are ultimately derived from the Old Norse
Old NorseSumarliðr.[1] A variant form of Sumarliðr is Sumarliði.[2] A variant form of Somerled is Summerlad, a name altered by
folk etymology, derived from the words "summer" and "lad".[3]Somhairle is sometimes Anglicised as Samuel,[4] although these two names are
etymologically unrelated (the latter being ultimately of
Hebrew origin).[5]
The Old Norse personal name likely originated as a
byname, meaning "summer-traveller",[6] "summer-warrior",[7] in reference to a
Viking,[8] or men who took to raiding during the summer months as opposed to full-time raiders.[9] An early occurrence of the term is sumarliða[10] (sumorlida, perhaps meaning "fleet"),[11] recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 871.[12] Another early occurrence of the term is Classi Somarlidiorum,[13] meaning "fleet of the sumarliðar",[14] which is recorded in the 12th-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, in an account of an attack on
Buchan in the mid-10th century.[15] Possibly the earliest record of the personal name occurs in a grant of land in
Nottinghamshire by
Edgar the Peaceful in 958.[16] Several men with the name are recorded in early Icelandic sources, such as the 10th-century Hrappr Sumarliðason, and his son Sumarliði, Icelanders said to have been of Scottish and Hebridean ancestry.[17] The first historical personage in Orkney with the name was
Sumarliði Sigurðsson, Earl of Orkney, eldest son of
Sigurðr digri, Earl of Orkney (d. 1014).[18]
List of persons with the given name
Somerled
Somerled (died 1164), Lord of Argyll, King of the Hebrides and Kintyre
Abrams, Leslie (2008), "King Edgar and the Men of the Danelaw", in Scragg, Donald (ed.), Edgar, King of the English, 959–975: New Interpretations, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, Woodbridge:
The Boydell Press, pp. 171–191,
ISBN978-1-84383-399-4,
ISSN1478-6710.
Fellows-Jensen, Gillian (1995), "Some Orkney Personal Names", in Batey, Colleen E.; Jesch, Judith; Morris, Christopher D. (eds.), The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney, and the North Atlantic, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, pp. 397–407.
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