Sorley (given name)

Sorley is an Anglicised form of Somhairle (modern Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈs̪o.ərˠlə]), a name mutual to both the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages, which means "summer wanderer". 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]

• Sorley (surname)