Hamish

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A masculine given name of Scottish origin, a traditional Scottish form of the name James
2. A male first name popular in Scotland, derived from the Gaelic form of the name James
3. The Scottish variant of the masculine personal name James, used as a first name for men and boys

Etymology: Hamish is a Scottish form of James, and its shape comes from a grammatical quirk of Scottish Gaelic. The Gaelic name Seumas is the Gaelic version of James, and in the vocative case, the form used when addressing someone directly, it becomes Sheumais. English speakers, hearing and writing that form, anglicized it as Hamish, so a name that began as a Latin-derived "Iacobus" reached English through a spelling of a spoken address rather than through a name ever used as a standalone label. The result is a doublet of James: two forms of one name that entered English by different routes. James came through Old French, while Hamish came through the Gaelic spoken in Scotland, so the two names look and sound quite different despite sharing a source. Hamish is most closely associated with Scotland, where it became a familiar given name.