KINGHORN,
a surname said to be derived from an ancient royal burgh, lying on the
shore of the firth of Forth, Fifeshire, which took its name from an
adjoining promontory of land, styled in Gaelic Cean gorn or
gorm, meaning “the blue head.” Very fanciful are these supposed
Gaelic derivations in other parts of Scotland as well as the county of
Fife. Both words of which the surname is composed are Anglo-Saxon
nouns, and both, moreover, are significant of power. Immediately north
of the town, said to have been first erected into a royal burgh by
David I. (1124-1153), there stood a castle, a residence at one time of
the Scottish kings, and it is thought by a writer in the Old
Statistical account of Scotland, that the name may have been suggested
by the frequent winding of the king’s horn when he sallied out to the
chase in the vicinity. The castle and lands of Kinghorn were conferred
by Robert II. in 1376 on Sir John Lyon of Glammis, knight, on his
marriage with the king’s daughter, the princess Jane. His
representative, Patrick, ninth Lord Glammis, was created earl of
Kinghron by James VI., a title which was afterwards changed to that of
Strathmore and Kinghorn, in the reign of James VII. It was in riding
from Inverkeithing towards the castle of Kinghorn that Alexander III.
was killed in 1286. (See ALEXANDER III.) Of the surname of Kinghorn
was a Baptist preacher at Norwich, Rev. Joseph Kinghorn, who died in
1832.
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KINGHORN, Earl of.
See LYON, 9th Lord Glammis, and STRATHMORE, Earl of.
