Fionnghall, Fingal

Gender: Masculine
Origin: Irish/Scottish/Swedish
Meaning: “white stranger, fair stranger.”

The name is from the Gaelic fionn meaning “white; fair” and gall meaning “stranger.” In Ireland, it is the name of an area in county Dublin, it was settled by Vikings in the early middle ages, and the name Fingal was given in reference to the fair-haired inhabitants. A language known as Fingalian, (now extinct) was spoken by the inhabitants till the mid-1800s. It was a mix of Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic. It was also the name of the hero in the English prose epic written by James Macpherson known as the Poems of Ossian and was the middle name of Oscar Wilde. In the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, it is the name of a cave on the uninhabited Isle of Staffa. It was popularized as a tourist destination after Felix Mendelsohn composed an overture in 1829, entitled Die Hebriden, which were inspired by the echoes he heard in the cave. In Sweden, its designated name-day is October 17.