Article for 2010 Apr 15
This article is not in a series.
2010
2010 Apr
Apr 15 Wed “Name the Ironies” 
Joke of the month: my first name has been linked to the Scottish Gaelic for “dark clan-leader”.
Wikipedia says that “Duncan” is an anglicisation of the Gaelic male given-name Donnchadh, which is pronounced “DONN-uh-chuh” with the “uh”s short and unstressed and the “ch” that throaty h sound. Donn means “dark” or “brown-haired”; chadh means “noble-man” or “clan-leader”. My hair is darkening...
A related Gaelic irony is this: the CairnGorm mountain-range was originally known as Am Monadh Ruadh, “the red mountains”. On the other side of the river Spey are Am Monadh Liath, “the Monadhliaths, the grey hills”.
But Cairn Gorm means “the blue cairn”, so re-naming the Monadh Ruadh as the Cairngorms meant changing the colour of the mountains!
However, the Gaelic name for the Cairngorms National Park is still Pairc Naiseanta a Mhonaidh Rhuadh, keeping the old name. The English evidently have different ideas of colours to the Scots.