The Weird and Wonderful Origins of Scottish Football Club Names

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

You've probably heard them blurted out by an overexcited Jeff Stelling at some point. In between fleeting appearances of a forgetful Chris Kamara and a banterless Charlie Nicholas, Sky's Soccer Saturday provides a window into a footballing world beyond the Premier League: the Scottish lower leagues. For most fans, club names like Queen of the South, Albion Rovers and Annan Athletic among many others are visible only on the vidiprinter.

Every so often though another realm of club names north of the border – even lower than the lower leagues – gain a nationwide audience. On Scottish Cup first round weekend Spartans, Cove Rangers, Clachnacuddin and the likes' fixtures appear alongside that of the British game's giants. The average Soccer Saturday viewer generally knows very little of such teams, but beyond so many Scottish club names there is a story that not even Stelling can tell.

Take Forres Mechanics, for instance, who face Lossiemouth in the first round of this season's Scottish Cup on Saturday. The Moray club might sound like a Mike Rutherford side project, but their roots can be found in an association with the town of Forres' mechanics institute, from which a group of members founded the team in the 1880s.

Such working class origins are a common thread in the background of countless Scottish clubs, like Burntisland Shipyard and Inverurie Loco Works, with the latter named after the local railway yard. Even after its closure in 1970, Loco Works continued to play on – according to some fans, in testament to Inverurie's proletarian past.

Scotland's bureaucratic class are also well represented in the country's lower leagues. Both Civil Service Strollers and Whitehall Welfare were formed by governmental office staff, with the Edinburgh and Midlothian clubs respectively playing first round fixtures in the Scottish Cup this weekend. Auchinleck Talbot – one of Scotland's most successful junior teams – take their name from the man who gifted them the land for their Beechwood Park ground, Lord Talbot de Maldahide.

Technically, however, the first round of the Scottish Cup is a misnomer, with a preliminary round played before this weekend's contrived curtain-raiser. And in the competition's qualifying stage an even deeper glimpse into the core of the Scottish game can be found.

The origin of Hermes' name doesn't really provide much more than a peculiar anecdote, with the Aberdeenshire club named after a Hermes 2000 typewriter which caught the eye of a founding member in a local magazine. It was the 1960s equivalent of naming a football club in honour of a MacBook Air.

Hawick Royal Albert too are an eccentric case, offering little in the way of a historical thread. Originally Hawick Railway, a breakaway club was formed in 1947, deriving their new name from the local team of a co-founder. That team – Royal Albert – took their name from a ship of the same moniker, naturally.

Poets and writers have also contributed to the eclectic variety of Scottish football club names. David Dunbar, a Dumfries poet, once called the town 'Queen of the South' in an address while standing for parliamentary election in the late 1800s. The title stuck with the club that now plays in the Scottish Championship at Palmerston Park. Heart of Midlothian take their name from the Walter Scott novel of the same title, which in turn is a denomination of Edinburgh (most interestingly though, the club was formed by members of the Heart of Midlothian Dancing Club).

Most other clubs have their roots in slightly more orthodox matters, though. Like Hibernian, for instance, which takes its title from the Latin term for Ireland: Hibernia. The Leith club was formed by Irish diaspora in Scotland and so a name was chosen to reflect that heritage.

And of course, there's Celtic and Rangers,the two Glasgow clubs that define Scottish football. Just like Hibernian, the name Celtic – first suggested by club founder Brother Walfrid – was chosen to reflect not only the Irish heritage of the club, but also their Scottish foundations. Meanwhile, Rangers' name was adopted from an English rugby club, simply because it took the fancy of those forming the Govan team in 1872.

Scotland's Old Firm doesn't just dominate the country's football scene, but its culture and civil composition too. Religion is just as prominent in the history of the two clubs as sport – with Celtic historically the side of Glasgow's catholic population and Rangers of its protestants – but they certainly aren't the only two teams with roots closer to a church than a football pitch.

Take St Mirren of Paisley. St Mirren isn't a place or a region or even a street. There is no typewriter named St Mirren and no ship either. Instead the club is named after the local patron saint, Saint Mirin, an Irish monk who is honoured with a great fete held in the town hall every September 15. St Johnstone too take their name from their home town of Perth's patron saint; unsurprisingly, that's Saint John.

Even folk heroes are represented in the Scottish Cup – namely Rob Roy MacGregor, the Scottish Robin Hood who is now immortalised in the title of East Dumbartonshire club Kirkintilloch Rob Roy. The Rabs, as they are nicknamed, made it no further than the preliminary round, with Vale of Leithen – a club which depicts the fabled figure of St Ronan, who is said to protect the Borders town from the devil himself – also crashing out at the qualification stage. This year Scottish mythology is somewhat under-represented in the competition.

Football north of the border isn't quite what it once was, but it will always have its names. Look closely enough at this weekend's Scottish Cup first round ties and a certain insight into the country's compelling and sometimes downright bizarre past can be traced. What's in a name? For many Scottish clubs, rather a lot.

@grahamruthven