Balbaird
Balbaird NBN S NO436057 1 374 184m NEF
terram de Balbard 1267 x 1275 Dunf. Reg. no. 314 [NBN Introduction, Med. Marches no. 1]
terram de Balbard 1267 x 1275 Dunf. Reg. no. 315 [NBN Introduction, Med. Marches no. 1]
Balbard’ 1306 Dunf. Reg. no. 590 [NBN Introduction, Med. Marches no. 2]
Balbard’ 1340 x 1354 RRS vi no. 132 [o.c.; wrongly assigned in PNF 1 to Balbairdie KGH]
Balbard 1450 Dunf. Reg. no. 431
Balbarde 1450 Dunf. Reg. no. 431
Balbarde 1451 RMS ii no. 429
Baward 1503 RSS i no. 992 [precept of remission of John Spence of Lathallan (Lathalland) KCQ for destroying the crops (granorum) of Balbaird belonging to Andrew Wood of Largo (Largo)]
Balbard 1542 NAS C2/28 no. 305 [NBN Introduction, Med. Marches no. 5]
Balbardy c.1560 s Assumption 24 [rental of Dunfermline Abbey]
Bawbaird c.1560 s Assumption 28
Monybard sive Bonyward sive Balbard 1563 RMS iv no. 1477 [‘or’ (sive); see NBN Introduction, Newburnshire, footnote]
terris de Balbaird 1671 Retours (Fife) no. 1095 [within the regality of Dunfermline]
Balbaird 1753 Roy sheet 18, 1
Balbairdie 1775 Ainslie/Fife
G baile + G bàrd
‘Farm of (the) poet(s)’. Baward (1503) and Bonyward (1563) suggest an underlying alternative form with the definite article, a’ bhàird ‘of the poet’. Furthermore the 1563 form Monybard may be a vestige of a G Mòine a’ Bhàird or (nam) Bàrd ‘moss or peat-bog of the poet or of (the) poets’, originally referring to the peat-bog[257] attached to the farm of Balbaird, but later developing as an alternative name for the farm itself.[258]
In a charter of 1450 it is described as poor land (‘considering the poorness or meagreness of the said lands of Balbaird’)[259] (Dunf. Reg. no. 431, p. 316).
/bəlˈberd/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2