Scoti orScotti is aLatin name for theGaels,^[1] first attested in the late3rd century. It originally referred to all Gaels, first those inIreland and then those who had settled inGreat Britain as well; it later came to refer only to Gaels in northern Britain.^[1] Thekingdom to which their culture spread became known asScotia orScotland, and eventually all its inhabitants came to be known asScots.

An early use of the word can be found in theNomina Provinciarum Omnium (Names of All the Provinces), which dates to about AD 312. This is a short list of the names and provinces of the Roman Empire. At the end of this list is a brief list of tribes deemed to be a growing threat to the Empire, which included theScoti, as a new term for the Irish.^[2] There is also a reference to the word inSt Prosper's chronicle of AD 431 where he describesPope Celestine sendingSt Palladius to Ireland to preach "ad Scotti in Christum" ("to the Scots who believed in Christ").^[3]

Thereafter, periodic raids by Scoti are reported by several later 4th and early 5th century Latin writers, namelyPacatus,^[4]Ammianus Marcellinus,^[5]Claudian^[6] and theChronica Gallica of 452.^[7] Two references to Scoti have been identified in Greek literature (as Σκόττοι), in the works ofEpiphanius, Bishop ofSalamis, writing in the 370s.^[8] The fragmentary evidence suggests an intensification of Scoti raiding from the early 360s, culminating in the so-called "barbarian conspiracy" of 367–368, and continuing up to and beyond theend of Roman rule c. 410. The location and frequency of attacks by Scoti remain unclear, as do the origin and identity of theGaelic population-groups who participated in these raids.^[9]

By the 5th century, the Gaelic orScottish kingdom ofDál Riata had emerged in the area of modern Scotland that is nowArgyll. Although this kingdom was destroyed and subjugated by thePictish kingdom of the 8th century underAngus I, the convergence ofPictish and Gaelic languages over several centuries resulted in theEnglish labelling Pictland underConstantine II asScottish in the early 10th century, first attested in AD 920, viewing the Picts as speaking aGaelic tongue. The growing influence of the English andScots languages from the 12th century with the introduction of Anglo-French knights and southerly expansion of Scotland's borders byDavid I saw the termsScot,Scottish andScotland also begin to be used commonly by natives of that country.^[10][11]

The etymology ofLate LatinScoti is unclear. It is not a Latin derivation, nor does it correspond to any knownGoidelic (Gaelic) term the Gaels used to name themselves as a whole or a constituent population group. Several derivations have been conjectured, but none has gained general acceptance in mainstream scholarship.

In the 19th century, Aonghas MacCoinnich proposed thatScoti came from Gaelicsgaothaich, meaning "crowd" or "horde".^[12]

Charles Oman (1910) derived it from Gaelicscuit, meaning someone cut off. He believed it referred to bands of outcast Gaelic raiders, suggesting that the Scots were to the Gaels what theVikings were to theNorse.^[13]

More recently, Philip Freeman (2001) has speculated on the likelihood of a group of raiders adopting a name from anIndo-European root, *skot, citing the parallel in theAncient Greekskotos (σκότος), meaning "darkness, gloom".^[14]

Linguist Kim McCone (2013) derives it from the Old Irish nounscoth meaning "pick", as in "the pick" of the population, the nobility, from anArchaic Irish reconstruction*skotī.^[15]

An origin has also been suggested in a word related to the Englishscot ("tax") andOld Norseskot; this referred to an activity in ceremonies whereby ownership of land was transferred by placing a parcel of earth in the lap of a new owner,^[16] whence 11th-century KingOlaf, one of Sweden's first known rulers, may have been known as ascot king.^[17]

• Attacotti
• Caledonia
• Déisi
• Gaelic Ireland
• Name of Britain
• Picts
• Uí Liatháin

• Freeman, Philip (2001),Ireland in the Classical World (University of Texas Press: Austin, Texas.ISBN 978-0-292-72518-8
• Rance, Philip (2012),'Epiphanius of Salamis and the Scotti: new evidence for late Roman-Irish relations',Britannia 43: 227–242
• Rance, Philip (2015),'Irish' in Y. Le Bohecet al. (edd.),The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army (Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester/Malden, MA, 2015).