Name of the Week: Sholto

Origin:

Sholto is an anglicised form of a Scottish name, specifically adopted by Clan Douglas from the name of their legendary ancestor. The Douglas Clan were one of the most powerful families in medieval Scotland.  The name looks very likely to be derived from the Scots Gaelic sìoltaich "sower," "begetter", "propagator" itself derived from sìolaich "to seed, to beget, propagate, be fruitful, spring from."* Clan genealogists—specifically David Hume of Godscroft (1558–1629)—identified the founder of the Douglas clan as Sholto Dhu Glas (Sìoltaich Dhu Glas) c.770, and the Douglas family adopted the name as a given name in the 18th century.  Writing in 1863, Charlotte Mary Yonge wrote of Sholto: "the heralds and genealogists of the gallant lineage of the bleeding heart made out an ancestor, Sholto Dhu Glas ('see the dark grey man'), and thence Sholto was adapted as a name in the Douglas family, and crept from thence to others. I have found no instance of it before the seventeenth century in looking through the peerage of Scotland, and the probable derivation of the word would be sioltaich, a sower." C.M.Yonge echoes here the tale told by David Hume in his History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus (1644). His work starts with a mythical battle "in 767, between King Solvathius rightful king of Scotland and a pretender Donald Bane. The victory was so nearly Donald's when a certain noble man, disdaining to see so bad a cause have good successe, struck in for the king and turned the fortunes of the day. When the king inquired about the knight who had done such valuable service, somebody exclaimed 'Sholto du glasse!'...'Behold the black gray man!'."* (Douglas derives from the Gaelic dubh "dark, back" and glas "green, water, stream, river.") Hume is widely regarded today as an inaccurate historian and more of a "partisan panegyricist of the Douglas family." The first record of the name Douglas appears in a charter in 1174 belonging to William of Douglas (d.c.1214). He, historians believe, was most likely the true ancestor of the clan while Sholto Dhu Glas is regarded as an example of pseudohistory.  It seems worth noting that while sìoltaich means "sower," it also means "propagator". While⁠—we can hypothesise⁠— the 'created' name Sìoltaich Dhu Glas could translate as "sower by the black water" (Dhu Glas = Black Water = a river in Scotland), perhaps early Douglas genealogists, desperate to deliver an ancestor to their patrons, simply coined the name Sìoltaich Dhu Glas to mean "progenitor of Douglas."

Usage:

The People of Medieval Scotland database has no record of Sìoltaich, Sìoltach or Sholto in use as a name. Given that the legendary Sìoltaich Dhu Glas was mythical (see above), this does not seem surprising.  The first person to bear the name appears to be Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton (1732–1774). The title Earl of Morton was created in 1458 for James Douglas of Dalkeith, one of the many strands of the noble Douglas family. From this point, Sholto was adopted by many in the Douglas Clan; when not used as a first name, it was often used as a middle. The website The Peerage is littered with examples of Douglas descendants bearing the name right up to present day.   Births records for Sholto as a first name: Click to enlarge   Scotland England and Wales   First name Middle name First name Middle name 1840s: 1850s: 1860s: 1870s: 1880s: 1890s: 1900s: 1910s: 1920s: 1930s: 1940s: 1950s: 1960s: 1970s: --- --- 1 birth 4 births 9 births 1 birth 6 births 2 births 1 birth 0 births 1 birth 1 birth 4 births 7 births --- --- 2 births 5 births 9 births 6 births 3 births 5 births 7 births 1 birth 5 births 1 birth 1 birth 6 births 2 births 6 birth 12 births 29 births 16 births 22 births 8 births 8 births 7 births 4 births 4 births 3 births 16 births 24 births 3 births 4 birth 5 births 16 births 30 births 27 births 13 births 2 births N/A* N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A *In the mid-1910s, all middle names were recorded as initials in the Birth Index. Due to it being an aristocratic name, Sholto had much more use in England than its native Scotland, mostly because even the Scottish peers by the 19th century had English country homes and London townhouses. Data from the 1881 census (see image, above right) shows that it was most common in the south of England, especially in London, but was also used in lowland Scotland where the Douglas family heralded from.  In recent years, Sholto has been in rare-uncommon usage. In Scotland, it peaked at #490 with 3 births in 2004.  In England and Wales it peaked at #1962 with 7 births in 2003.

Famous Bearers:

History: * Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton (1732–1774), Scottish nobleman and peer. * Sholto Percy, pseudonym of Joseph Clinton Robertson (1787–1852), Scottish patent agent, writer and periodical editor. * Sholto Douglas, (b. 1833) Admiral in the Royal Navy. * Sholto Douglas, 19th Earl of Morton (1844–1935), Scottish landowner, businessman and representative peer. * Sholto Johnstone Douglas (1871–1958), Scottish artist. * Sholto Douglas (1873–1916), English cricketer. * Sholto Marcon (1890–1959), Church of England clergyman and international field hockey player. * Sholto Douglas, 1st Baron Douglas of Kirtleside (1893–1969), Marshal of the Royal Air Force. Contemporary: * Sholto Kynoch, English pianist. * Sholto Taylor (born 1972), New Zeland wheelchair rugby player, and a member of the national team, the Wheel Blacks. Literature and Other Media: * Sholto Pinn, a character in The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud. * Sholto Lennox, baby in the 2004 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South. * Thaddeus and Bartholomew Sholto, characters in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four.

Variants:

Sìoltaich (Scots Gaelic)

Pronunciation:

SHOL-tō [key]

Possible diminutives:

Holt, Sol, Solly, Solo, Tolly, Olly

Sibling Names:

Kinvara     Perdita     Heloise     Portia     Christabel     Arabella Torquil     Ranulph     Piers     Ewart     Jolyon     Montgomery

Name Lists:

Upright Elegance

 

If you like Sholto you may also like:   Cosmo, Sorley, Algernon, Cedric, Ivo, Tarquin, Otto, Montague, Caspain, Elgin

Thanks to Paula for requesting this name.