Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Aug 11, 2026

Colquhoun

Colquhoun is a habitational surname of Scottish origin, derived from the lands of Colquhoun, which lay east of Dumbarton. In 1241, the Earl of Lennox granted these lands to one Umfridus de Kilpatrick, whose descendants assumed the name de Colquhoun. The place name may derive from the Gaelic cùil chumhann, meaning "narrow corner"; alternatively, the first element may be coille, "wood".

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Colquhoun (/kəˈhuːn/ kə-HOON) is a habitational surname of Scottish origin, derived from the lands of Colquhoun, which lay east of Dumbarton.1 In 1241, the Earl of Lennox granted these lands to one Umfridus de Kilpatrick, whose descendants assumed the name de Colquhoun.2 The place name may derive from the Gaelic cùil chumhann, meaning "narrow corner"; alternatively, the first element may be coille, "wood".3

The l is typically silent, in accordance with the Scottish tendency to drop this letter (see l-vocalization). The trigraph ⟨quh⟩ represents [h] in the modern pronunciation of the name, but originally stood for [xw].4

Variants of the name, showing simplification of the spelling, include Colhoun, Calhoun, Cohoon, Cahoon, Kahoun, etc.

People with the surname include:

References

References

  1. Fraser, William (1869). The Chiefs of Colquhoun and Their Country (PDF). Vol. 2. Edinburgh: self-published. pp. 6 f.
  2. Black, George F. (1946). The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History. New York: New York Public Library. pp. 163 f.
  3. Hanks, Patrick; Lenarčič, Simon; McClure, Peter, eds. (2022). "Colquhoun". Dictionary of American Family Names (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-024512-2.
  4. Aitken, A. J. (2015) [1977]. "How to Pronounce Older Scots" (PDF). Collected Writings on the Scots Language. By Aitken, A. J. Macafee, Caroline (ed.). Scots Language Centre. p. 17.