Greenside
Greenside CBE S NO513067 1 374 140m SOF
le Grenesyde 1511 RMS ii no. 3590 [Arncroach (Arncroich) CBE and the Greenside]
Greenside 1517 Fife Ct. Bk. 398 [17th c. copy; Taxt roll of Fife, ‘Over-Kelly & Greenside’, £1]
Greneside 1542 RMS iii no. 2798 [Arncroach (Auldincroich) CBE, Greenside]
Grensyde 1560 Retours (Fife) no. 43 [Peter Oliphant (Olyphant), in barony of Kellie CBE]
Greneside 1613 RMS vii no. 883 [3rd of the lands of Greenside, ‘Paikishoill et Cowishoill’, part of barony of Kellie CBE]
Greinsyd 1634 Retours (Fife) no. 504 [3rd of the lands of Greenside, ‘Paikisholl, Comshall’ in barony of Kellie]
Greinsyd 1643 Retours (Fife) no. 642 [3rd of the lands of Greenside, ‘Pakishow & Comshow’]
Greensyde 1699 Retours (Fife) no. 1430 [3rd of the lands of Greenside, ‘Parkisholl & Cowsholl’]
Greenside 1775 Ainslie/Fife [placed farther east than the modern Greenside]
Greenside 1786 RHP2153 [seven fields marked, but no building]
Greenside 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc green + Sc side
‘Green hill-side’, probably with reference to good-quality grazing.
The two names Cowsholl and Paikisholl closely associated with Greenside appear in a wide variety of forms. However, the best reading of the former is Cowsholl or Cowie’s Holl, the forms Comshall and Comshow in the Retours entries for 1634 and 1643 resulting from a scribe or editor misreading w as m. It appears on RHP2153 (1786) as Cowie’s Holl, the name of a small field in the north-east corner of Easter Kelly. This suggests that the first element is the surname Cowie. The second element is Sc howe ‘hollow’, frequently written holl. The best reading of the latter name is Paikisholl, *Paik’s Howe, containing the same generic meaning ‘hollow’, the specific element probably being the surname Paik, a reduced form of Peacock (see Black 1946, 653).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 3