Names of places in the Outer Hebrides are notoriously variable. There are several reasons for this, including lack of standardisation of Gaelic orthography in the past, changes in Gaelic spelling conventions over time, ad hoc approaches to rendering Gaelic names in a written form that is supposedly easier for non-Gaelic-speakers to pronounce, and the fact that many of the names are partially or entirely of Norse origin. Over time, some of the more well-known locations have arrived at more or less stable versions of Gaelic and anglicised names, but they are in the minority. 

When choosing which name to feature in the title of a record, therefore, we have often had to make an arbitrary choice. This has been a particular problem in the case of settlements that are now abandoned, where there is little or no reason to favour one variant over another. Much the same applies to the entries in the 'Gaelic name' and 'Also Known As' fields of our records.

To aid with searching for and identifying locations, we have compiled the list below, which includes more variants on the names. It is possible to search this list from your browser using Ctrl+F or a similar keyboard shortcut. 

The list covers only currently or formerly inhabited settlements or smaller islands for which there are records on the website, and which are linked to people. It is not and could never be complete, but we hope to add to it over time. Our record titles do not feature accents but the 'Gaelic name if different' column in the table below indicates where these would be used when writing in Gaelic. Even this is not always completely straightforward, however. Note that the fact that a particular variant appears in one column rather than another does not necessarily mean that we endorse any particular version as being more 'correct'.

The table also provides a CE code in the case of settlements that lie within the areas of the comainn eachdraidh (historical societies) that are contributing information to the website. Consult our home page or the maps linked to it for an explanation of these codes.