Viking-Age Communities: Pap-Names and Papar in the Hebridean Islands

This report studies Old-Norse Pap-names, which have traditionally been taken to indicate early Christian Gael settlements. It highlights the Hebrides and presents a toponymic inventory of Hebridean Pap-names, comparing them with areas of known early Christian settlement. It concludes that the Pap-names should be taken to denote not pre-Viking Christian settlement, but in fact the earliest Scandinavian colonisation of the area.