Gaddon
Gaddon CLS S NO284123 1 50m
? vado quod vocatur Ethyweyn 1248 Lind. Cart. no. 137 [‘the ford which is called Ethyweyn’; see CLS Intro., Medieval Landscapes]
(half of) Gadwen 1540 RMS iii no. 2114 [form checked in MS NAS C2/26 no. 449; barony of Leuchars-Ramsay; see LEU Intro., Lordship and Baronies]
? Gadwell 1540 NAS C2/27 no. 126 [printed as RMS iii no. 2168; in MS is Gadwell twice; may be Caldwells CLS; Sandilands of Cruivie; see Pitlair CLS]
dimed<ietatem> dimedietatis de Gadwen 1579 RMS iv no. 2950 cols. 2–3 [Ramsays; ‘½ of a ½ of Gaddon, with ½ of their ward and meadow’ (cum dimed<ietate> warde et prati earundem); division as per 1540 RMS iii no. 2114]
Gawdwen 1584 RMS v no. 660 [to David Carnegie of Colluthie, Woodhead ? (Warheid) ABE, Gaddon and Bowhouse (Bowhous) CLS]
(lands of) Gadvane 1649 RMS ix no. 2097 [to J. Arnot of Fernie MML]
Gadven 1653 RMS x no. 183 [lands of Gaddon, Bowhouse and Shiells CLS]
Gadding 1790s OSA, 154 [‘so named from the water bursting through it’; for more details, see Agabatha Castle CLS, above]
Cadven 1810 Sasines no. 8600 [‘barony of Weddersbie comprehending Weddersbie and Woodhead, Hatton and Hattonhill, Caldwells, Wester and Easter Collessie, Bowhouse of Weddersbie, Shiells of Weddersbie, Cadven and Galding, with the Dovecot’ etc]
Gadden 1828 SGF
Gaddon 1854 OS Name Book 54, 37 [‘locally called Gaddon from the Go-down the water made there’; for more details, see Agabatha Castle CLS, above]
Gaddon 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Gaddon Plantation ? OS Pathfinder
Birnie and Gaddon Lochs 2007 OS Get-a-Map 1:25,000
This is a problematical name, made more so by the difficulty in distinguishing the earliest forms from those of Caldwells CLS (above), and by the possibility of assimilation to Gadvan DBG (below). Ethyweyn (1248), the name attached to a ford, is probably the earliest form of this name – it certainly seems to be in the right place (see CLS Intro., Medieval Landscapes). The first element is therefore G àth ‘ford’, the later forms in Gad- etc perhaps arising from assimilation to Gadvan DBG, and even to Caldwells CLS. Alternatively, and tentatively, the initial g might have developed from a Gaelic phrase containing the preposition aig ‘at’, with *aig àth- becoming re-analysed as *aig gath-.
The second element is also problematic: G uaine (OG úane) ‘green’ and G uan ‘lamb’ are both possible, although it might be argued that weyn of the 1248 form is unlikely to have developed from either. In favour of the latter, ‘lamb-ford’, a closely analogous name would be Auchmutie MAI (PNF 2), ‘wether-ford’.
The etymologies relating to water bursting through Birnie Hill can safely be dismissed as spurious (see Agabatha Castle CLS, above, for more details).
On OS 6 inch 1st edn Gaddon is marked as a small settlement immediately south of the Collessie Burn and east of the road (now the B937).
/ˈgadən/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4