Etymology of Edinburgh

The etymology of Edinburgh traces the origin of the name of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The city is known as Edinburgh in English and Scots, and Dùn Èideann in Scottish Gaelic, both of which are derived from the older place name Eidyn. It is generally accepted that this name derives ultimately from the Celtic Common Brittonic language.

Several medieval Welsh sources refer to Eidyn. Kenneth H. Jackson argued strongly that "Eidyn" referred exclusively to the location of modern Edinburgh, but others, such as Ifor Williams and Nora K. Chadwick, suggest it applied to the wider area as well. The name "Eidyn" may survive today in toponyms such as Edinburgh, Dunedin, and Carriden (from Caer Eidyn, from which the modern Welsh name, , is derived), located eighteen miles to the west.

Present-day Edinburgh was the location of Din Eidyn, a dun or hillfort associated with the kingdom of the Gododdin. The term Din Eidyn first appears in Y Gododdin, a poem that depicts events relating to the Battle of Catraeth, thought to have been fought circa 600. The oldest manuscript of Y Gododdin forms part of the Book of Aneirin, which dates to around 1265 but which possibly is a copy of a lost 9th-century original. Some scholars consider that the poem was composed soon after the battle and was preserved in oral tradition while others believe it originated in Wales at some time in the 9th to 11th centuries. The modern Scottish Gaelic name "Dùn Èideann" derives directly from the British Din Eidyn. The English and Scots form is similar, appending the element -burgh, from the Old English burh, also meaning "fort".

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