What Munro Names Mean: A Guide to Gaelic Hill Names

For most new baggers, the names of the Munros are an intimidating wall of unfamiliar spelling — Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan, A' Mhaighdean, Stob Coire Sgreamhach. But Scottish Gaelic hill names are not random; they are descriptions, often vividly accurate ones, given by the people who lived and worked among these mountains. Learn a handful of common words and the map turns into a kind of guidebook. Suddenly a name tells you whether a hill is a rounded lump or a rocky peak, what colour it is, or what was once found on its slopes.

The words for "hill" tell you the shape

The first word of a Munro name is usually the generic term for the hill itself, and Gaelic is precise about shape:

• Beinn / Ben — the general word for a mountain, as in Ben More ("big mountain"). The most common of all.
• Sgurr (skoor) — a sharp, rocky peak. When you see Sgurr, expect something pointed and steep, like Sgurr nan Gillean.
• Stob — a pointed top or peak, as in Stob Binnein.
• Meall (myowl) — a rounded, lumpy hill. Generally a gentler proposition than a Sgurr.
• Carn — a rounded, stony hill or a heap of stones.
• Creag (krayk) — a crag or cliff.

The describing words: colour, size and features

After the hill word usually comes an adjective or a feature, and the same handful recur across the whole list:

• Mor — big; Beag — small.
• Dubh (doo) — black; Ban — white or fair; Dearg (jerrak) — red; Glas — grey or green; Buidhe (boo-ya) — yellow.
• Liath — grey; Odhar (o-ar) — dun-coloured.
• Coire — a corrie, the bowl-shaped hollow scooped into a mountainside.
• Loch — a lake; Allt — a stream.

Put these together and the names decode themselves. Meall a' Bhuiridh is "the rounded hill of the roaring" — a reference to the bellowing of rutting stags. Beinn Dorain is often read as the hill of the otter or of the streamlet. A' Mhaighdean means "the maiden". The mountains were named for what they looked like, what happened on them, or what lived there.

A note on pronunciation

Gaelic spelling looks daunting because it follows entirely different rules from English, but it is highly consistent once you know a few of them — "mh" and "bh" are pronounced like a "v", "dh" and "gh" are soft or silent, and the stress usually falls on the first syllable. Do not let fear of mispronouncing a name keep you from learning it; even fluent speakers and locals differ, and an honest attempt is always welcome. If you want to hear them, the names spoken aloud by Gaelic speakers are widely available online.

Reading the hills

None of this is essential to bagging a Munro — but it deepens the experience enormously. Once the names make sense, planning a trip across a map of the Highlands becomes a richer thing, and you start to notice that the old names frequently describe exactly what you find when you arrive. Browse the full list of all 282 Munros with this small vocabulary in mind and the map reads very differently. Each summit you log in the Munros app carries a name with a meaning — and knowing it is part of what turns a tick-list into a genuine connection with the hills.

Related guides

• The history of Munro bagging — how the list came to be
• Munro maps explained — reading the Scottish hills on paper
• All 282 Munros — the full list by region