Etymology
The "Edin" in "Edinburgh" is most likely Celtic (P-Celtic, Brythonic) in origin, possibly Cumbric or a variation of it, as would have been spoken by the earliest known people of the area, the Votadini. It appears to derive from the Brythonic place name Eidyn mentioned in some medieval Welsh sources.
The Edinburgh area was the location of Din Eidyn, a dun or hillfort associated with the kingdom of the Gododdin (the name Gododdin is a later form of Votadini).
The change in nomenclature, from Din Eidyn to Edinburgh, reflects changes in the local language from Cumbric to Old English, the Germanic language of the Bernician Angles that permeated the area from the mid-7th century (and the ancestor of modern Scots and English). The Celtic prefix is dropped and a suffix from the Old English burh, adopted.
The first evidence of a town existing separately from the fort is an early 12th-century royal charter by King David I granting land to the Church of the Holy Rood of Edinburgh c.1124. This charter names the town "Edwinesburg." This first documentary evidence of a separate settlement has led some scholars to conclude that the town came into official existence between 1018 (when King Malcolm II secured the Lothians from the Northumbrians) and 1124. By the 1170s, King William the Lion was using the name "Edenesburch" in a charter (in Latin) confirming the 1124 grant of David I.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Edinburgh
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