Aberdeen

What Does the Name Aberdeen Mean?

Aberdeen means "mouth of the Don," and it comes from Scottish Gaelic and older Celtic speech in northeast Scotland. The first element is aber, a Celtic word for a river mouth or confluence, the same element seen in Welsh names such as Aberystwyth and in Scottish ones such as Aberfeldy and Aberlour. The second element is the River Don, which flows into the North Sea just north of the city of Aberdeen. The Gaelic form of the name is Obar Dheathain, in which the second word is the lenited form of the river name.

The River Don's own name is less certain. The Greek geographer Ptolemy recorded a river in this region as Devona, which points to a Celtic root connected with a goddess or something divine. Other scholars connect the river name to a widespread Celtic word for water or river, the same root behind the Danube. Both explanations are old and neither can be confirmed, so the meaning of the second element is best described as disputed. What is not in doubt is the overall sense of the place name: the settlement at the mouth of the Don.

Aberdeen is not a variant of another personal name. It is a Scottish place name that later became a surname, a noble title, and occasionally a first name.

Aberdeen Name History & Origins

Aberdeen is the name of a city on the northeast coast of Scotland, and the written record of the place name goes back to the Middle Ages. Medieval Latin and Scots documents use forms such as Aberdon and Aberdene before the modern spelling settles as Aberdeen. The old settlement of Old Aberdeen sits by the River Don, while the main medieval burgh grew near the River Dee a short distance south. Because the town lay between the two rivers, the spelling with -deen may have been influenced by the River Dee, even though the etymological second element is the Don. That shift in spelling is a plausible explanation rather than a settled one.

Aberdeen became a royal burgh in the 12th century and grew into a major Scottish port, later known for granite building stone and for the North Sea oil industry. Its Latin name, Aberdonia, appears in older scholarly writing.

The name entered the British peerage with the title Earl of Aberdeen, created in 1682. George Hamilton-Gordon, the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, served as British prime minister from 1852 to 1855, and places named for him include the Aberdeen district of Hong Kong. Towns in the United States, Canada, and Australia also took the name from the Scottish city or from the title.

As a personal name, Aberdeen has never been common. It appears occasionally as a given name, mainly in the United States, where it has been used for both boys and girls. It is far more familiar as a place name and a surname than as a first name.