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A given name in French
Language context for this entry: French
No sourced pronunciation yet
01 / Meaning & origin
Kentigern is a given name.
No etymology is recorded in our sources for this spelling yet. The record exists because the name is documented in use; a meaning will be shown only once a cited source supports it.
02 / Across borders
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4
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4 of 4 countries
03 / By the numbers
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04 / Through time
Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.
Kentigern— “head chief”
Kentigern in the North, Cyndeyrn in Wales, was the name of an early Pictish saint, who recalled his countrymen from Pelagianism, and is regarded as the apostle and patron of Glasgow. Persecution obliged him to take refuge in Wales, where he founded the church of Llandwy, being guided, as saith the legend, to the spot by a milk-white boar, which ran before him, and on arriving at the spot began to stamp and root up the ground with his tusks. Returning to Glasgow, the saint…
Kentigern in the North, Cyndeyrn in Wales, was the name of an early Pictish saint, who recalled his countrymen from Pelagianism, and is regarded as the apostle and patron of Glasgow. Persecution obliged him to take refuge in Wales, where he founded the church of Llandwy, being guided, as saith the legend, to the spot by a milk-white boar, which ran before him, and on arriving at the spot began to stamp and root up the ground with his tusks. Returning to Glasgow, the saint thence sent missionaries to Iceland, who no doubt were the teachers of the few inhabitants whose descendants were long after found there by the Norse settlers, and called by them _Papa_, from the title of their priests, a title still lingering in many a bay and islet of the Hebrides, attesting that there the Culdee clergy had been owned as the fathers of their flocks. After a custom that does not seem to have been uncommon among the Keltic saints, Kentigern used every night to sing through the whole Book of Psalms, standing up to his neck in water.…
Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part V, Chapter III (Gaelic Names), Section XI (Names of Majesty) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)
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06 / Behind the facts
Review status: Source-reported — no editorial review recorded yet. Last data change 2026-10-17.
Wiktionary text: CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata: CC0. Commons recordings retain their individual file licences. Complete attribution is available in each group above and alongside each chart.
