Colquhoun

Colquhoun (/kəˈhuːn/ kə-HOON) is a habitational surname of Scottish origin, derived from the lands of Colquhoun, which lay east of Dumbarton. In 1241, the Earl of Lennox granted these lands to one Umfridus de Kilpatrick, whose descendants assumed the name de Colquhoun. The place name may derive from the Gaelic cùil chumhann, meaning "narrow corner"; alternatively, the first element may be coille, "wood".

The l is typically silent, in accordance with the Scottish tendency to drop this letter (see l-vocalization). The trigraph ⟨quh⟩ represents [h] in the modern pronunciation of the name, but originally stood for [xw].

Variants of the name, showing simplification of the spelling, include Colhoun, Calhoun, Cohoon, Cahoon, Kahoun, etc.

People with the surname include:

In fiction

In British television detective drama Midsomer Murders episode nr. 61 "Blood Wedding" (S11E2) there is a character called Randall Colquhoun (Simon Paisley Day). This upper class gentleman is a friend of the Fitzroy family. When DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) is trying to ask questions from Mr Colquhoun, he at first pronounces his name Col-q-houn, on which he's being pretty arrogantly corrected. Later on, when DS Jones arrests Mr 'Cahoon', Jones pronounces his name incorrecty, stressing the middle syllable 'Col-que-houn' – and this time he does it just to wind him up.

References

  1. ↑ Fraser, William (1869). The Chiefs of Colquhoun and Their Country (PDF). Vol. 2. Edinburgh: self-published. pp. 6 f.
  2. ↑ Black, George F. (1946). The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History. New York: New York Public Library. pp. 163 f.
  3. ↑ Hanks, Patrick; Lenarčič, Simon; McClure, Peter, eds. (2022). "Colquhoun". Dictionary of American Family Names (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-024512-2.
  4. ↑ Aitken, A. J. (2015) [1977]. "How to Pronounce Older Scots" (PDF). Collected Writings on the Scots Language. By Aitken, A. J. Macafee, Caroline (ed.). Scots Language Centre. p. 17.
  5. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1106214/fullcredits/#amzn1.imdb.concept.name_credit_group.7caf7d16-5db9-4f4f-8864-d4c6e711c686
This page lists people with the surname Colquhoun.
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