Sorley (given name)

Sorley is a masculine given name in the English language.

Etymology

Sorley is an Anglicised form of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic Somhairle. 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

• Somhairle Mac Domhnail, 17th-century Irish soldier

Sorley

• Sorley Boy MacDonnell, (died 1590), Scottish/Irish chieftain
• Sorley MacLean, (1911–1996), a Scottish poet

Sumarlidi

• Sumarlidi Sigurdsson, 11th-century Earl of Orkney

Citations

1. Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 356, 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, pp. ix, 230.
2. Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 400.
3. Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, p. 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 230, 233.
4. Mark 2003, p. 716.
5. Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 240–241; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 220.
6. Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184; Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, pp. 356, 409; Hanks, & Hodges 1997, p. 230; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.
7. McDonald & McLean 1992, pp. 5–7.
8. Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398; McDonald & McLean 1992, pp. 5–7.
9. Woolf 2007, p. 194; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.
10. Woolf 2007, p. 194.
11. Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399.
12. Woolf 2007, p. 194; Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399.
13. McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1; Anderson 1922, pp. 468–469.
14. Woolf 2007, p. 194.
15. McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1.
16. Abrams 2008, pp. 183–184.
17. Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 399; McDonald & McLean 1992, p. 7 n. 1.
18. Fellows-Jensen 1995, p. 398.

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.