Picts - Names

Names

What they called themselves is unknown. The Latin word Picti first occurs in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297 and is taken to mean "painted or tattooed people" (from Latin pingere "to paint",; pictus, "painted", cf. Greek "πυκτίς" - pyktis, "picture"). As Sally M. Foster noted, "Much ink has been spilt over what the ancient writers meant by Picts, but it seems to be a generic term for people living north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus who raided the Roman Empire."

Their Old English name gave the modern Scots form Pechts and the Welsh word Fichti. In writings from Ireland, the name Cruthin, Cruthini, Cruthni, Cruithni or Cruithini (Modern Irish: Cruithne) was used to refer to the Picts and to a group of people who lived alongside the Ulaid in eastern Ulster. It is generally accepted that this is derived from *Qritani, which is the Goidelic/Q-Celtic version of the Britonnic/P-Celtic *Pritani. From this came Britanni, the Roman name for those now called the Britons. It has been suggested that Cruthin was a name used to refer to all the Britons who were not conquered by the Romans; those who lived outside Roman Britannia, north of Hadrian's Wall.