Sorley (given name)

Sorley is a masculine given name in the English language.

Etymology

Sorley is an Anglicised form of Somhairle (modern Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈso.ərlə]), 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 Norse Sumarliðr.[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

Somhairle

Sorley

  • Sorley Boy MacDonnell, (died 1590), Scottish/Irish chieftain
  • Sorley MacLean, (Somhairle MacGill-Eain, 1911–1996), one of the most significant Scottish poets of the 20th century

Sumarlidi

Citations

References

  • Abrams, Leslie (2008), "King Edgar and the Men of the Danelaw", in Scragg, Donald, 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, ISBN 978-1-84383-399-4, ISSN 1478-6710 .
  • Anderson, Alan Orr, ed. (1922), Early Sources of Scottish History: A.D. 500 to 1286, 1, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd .
  • Fellows-Jensen, Gillian (1995), "Some Orkney Personal Names", in Batey, Colleen E.; Jesch, Judith; Morris, The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney, and the North Atlantic, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 397–407 |first4= missing |last4= in Editors list (help) .
  • Hanks, Patrick; Hodges, Flavia (1997), A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Revised ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860094-1 .
  • Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1 .
  • Mark, Colin (2003), The Gaelic-English Dictionary, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-203-27706-6 .
  • McDonald, Russell Andrew; McLean, Scott A. (1992), "Somerled of Argyll: A New Look at Old Problems", The Scottish Historical Review, Edinburgh University Press, 71: 3–22, JSTOR 25530531 .
  • Woolf, Alex (2007), From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-1233-8 .
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