English / Map Form: Insch
Gaelic Form: Innis
Location: Aberdeenshire
Post Town: INSCH
County: Aberdeenshire
Local Authority: Aberdeenshire
English / Map Form: Insch
Gaelic Form: Innis
Language Notes
Element Meaning
G innis ~ meadow, pasture, island
Sources
| de Inchemabanin | 1165×1214 Chr. Lindores, cxxxix |
| Inchemabanin | c. 1199 Chr. Lindores, ii |
| ecclesiam de Inchemabanin | c. 1203 Chr. Lindores, iii |
| de Inchemabanyn | 1219×1232 Chr. Lindores, xv |
| sancti Drostani de Inchemabani | 1228×1239 Chr. Lindores, lix |
| ecclesiam de Inchemabanin | c.1213 Chr. Lindores, xciv |
| molendinum de Inchemabani | c. 1249×1286 Chr. Lindores, cxxiii |
| Insula x2 | c. 1275 Reg. Aberdonensis, pp 53, 55 |
| Ingemabanin | 1291 Antiqities Abd. Banff iv, p. 501 |
| Inchmacbany que et Insula vocatur | c. 1366 Antiqities Abd. Banff i, p. 221 [from Liver Cartarum S Andree 355-360?] |
| ecclesiam de Ingemabanin | 1375 Chr. Lindores, xcii |
| Inshis / Inchis | 1536 Antiqities Abd. Banff, iii, p. 401 |
īsh (nasal vowel): Diack, Inscriptions, 195
Additional Information
‘meadow, haugh of Mabanin, an unidentified name, possibly of a saint’: Alexander, 1952 302
Cf. also Watson 1926, 312.
The earliest forms, as Watson suggests, seem to reflect something like *Innis mo B(h)eathain or *Innis MacBheathain. From the 13th Century the personal name was starting to be dropped to simply Innis. (The form Insula is a Latinisation of the Gaelic form). It is interesting that Diack’s form gives no article; this occurs sometimes in simplex names where a genitive has dropped from the name.