Talk:List of tartans

Clarity

The "Association" column has entries like "Clandonoquhay", which pipes to "Clan Donnachaidh". How should we hande this? A new column? Please advise because I don't know. The whole thing could use some guidance. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if it is the case but I'd guess the names/spellings given in the article are those given in the Vestiarium Scoticum, in which case they may be archaic, needlessly obscure to the contemporary reader and/or possibly downright incorrect or even spurious. I'd think there is a case to change to linking directly, rather than change the name displayed as it is now, or at the very least to give both forms of the name, one in brackets after the other. Mutt Lunker (talk) 21:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Splendid. I'm very happy to hear that. I will do the former and go with the direct link, which is the article name. If the Vestiarium Scoticum name is legitimate then it can be given in the article itself. Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:57, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Braw. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I actually removed the pipes on purpose. I saw them as instances where the "(surname)" was useful, but if you feel the pipe is best, that's fine.

Do you think Oliver (family name) should be moved to Oliver (surname) per convention? Are surnames and family names the same? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I can see it might stop someone from thinking Oliver is the tartan for people with the forename Oliver or something and it is a surname, rather than a clan, as most of the others are. If "(surname)" is the convention, yes it should probably be moved from "Oliver (family name)", but there is already in existence a redirect, Oliver (surname), to the various Oliver origins. Er, not sure what the solution is, at this moment..?

Clan Macqueen is probably a more appropriate link for the other example, on reflection. Mutt Lunker (talk) 01:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Followup

• Requested page move over redirect Oliver (family name) --> Oliver (surname)

• Changed MacQueen (surname) --> Clan Macqueen, and changed Oliver (family name) --> Oliver (surname) in preparation for page move, and removed Oliver pipe for clarity

Now, do we need a page move Clan Macqueen --> Clan MacQueen? Actually, probably not, considering [1] and Talk:Clan Macqueen#Lower-case letter q Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Issues with this entry

No alphabetical order ?

Not all tribes in Scotland are called Clan, some are called Family, yet there are several incorrectly listed as Clan.

Where are all the Mc's rather than just Mac's ?

The following letter after the Mac, or Mc, is always a capital letter and there are no exceptions to that rule (unless corrupted by American spellings that don't have any credence in Scottish or Irish culture. e.g. "Macqueen" should be "MacQueen", it follows the rules of the native language not personal aesthetic preference.

Tartan is the Scots name for the textile and the correct term in English (UK or USA Eng.) for such a textile is "plaid". There are many "Tartans" listed on this dubious Wiki page that are not even affiliated with Scot's or Irish culture in any way whatsoever. Burberry is not a tartan.

No information on the history or origin of the textile. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.112.140.132 (talk) 02:53, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't see why the tartans should be in alphabetical order. I personally prefer a geographical order as I commented below, starting from Scotland since tartans were born there.

If some clans or families are mislabeled then comment and provide information.

I also believe patronymics should follow specific rules with Mac followed by a letter that is capitalized. In the end, they all mean "son (of)" so it makes sense that the spelling should be MacGregor and not Macgregor since Gregor is a name and it should be capitalized. I am well aware names of various origins have been butchered in the U.S.A. However, I know there are arguments around clan names like MacKenzie or MacLeod that are spelled as Mackenzie and Macleod and even people in Scotland adopt the letter with lower case. Another example is Clan MacLean which is inconsistently spelled on Wikipedia and consistently spelled as Maclean rather than MacLean on the worldwide website. I cannot make any sense of them. It's illogical to me. All I know is that some people insist in spelling incorrectly their surname.

What is your definition of "dubious Wiki page"? Provide one that makes sense.

A tartan is a textile and it does not need to be Scottish or Irish. In fact, there are plenty of Canadian tartans. The Burberry Check is indeed a tartan and it's been around since at least 1927. Just because it's a trademarked tartan used by a business, it doesn't mean it's not a tartan. It's still a textile so it's a tartan.

Information on the origins or history of tartans does not belong to this page and can be found on the main tartan entry.

ICE77 (talk) 07:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Most Scottish families use Mac (there are exceptions like McCandlish which is almost exinct with Mac). The capitalisation after M[a]c generally depends on whether the letter that follows was in the original Gaelic name. E.g., Gaelic patronymic mac Cuindlis became anglicised McCandlish (both have C), while Gaelic patronymic mac Coinnich became anglicised Mackenzie because mac Coinnich had no K there. Thus, entries like Macqueen (from mac Shuibhne, mac Cuinn, and/or mac Cuithein – no Q) are not errors. However, some (especially North Americans) may personally use spellings like McQueen or McKenzie. There's hardly a limit to the number of anglicised variants of Gaelic names, even obscure ones (over 90 derived from [mac or Ó] Cuindlis, for example [2]). The important point here is that for overall clans and families, WP should use the spelling that is most conventional in sources on Scottish clans and families, which is lower-case k and q for Mackenzie and Macqueen, but capital D and capital G for MacDonald and MacGregor. On the bio article of some individual who was known to consistently use an unorthodox spelling like McQueen or Macgregor we would there use that spelling, for that specific person and their immediate family.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:13, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Geographical reorganization of displayed tartans

This entry should be organized so that there are distinct sections. I suggest to group them like this:

• U.K.
  • Scotland
    • Clans
      • Highlands
      • Lowlands
    • Universal
    • Companies
  • England
    • Royalty
    • Families

• Ireland

• Canada
  • Regions

• U.S.A.
  • States
  • Companies
  • Universities

ICE77 (talk) 08:55, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Comments on the images

1a. The Clan Stuart has two entries which are listed as Stewart in the Vestiarium Scoticum. Yes, Stewart became Stuart in France but this is a discrepancy nonetheless and it should be fixed.

1b. In addition, for the white sett, I read:

“ This is a "Royal Stewart tartan" of the House of Stuart. It is worn by the regimental pipers of the Scots Guards. It was referred to by King George V of the United Kingdom as "my personal tartan. ”

There are two problems with the above statements. The first is that the Scots Guards do not use a white tartan but the standard red Royal Stewart tartan and I very much doubt George V used that same tartan (which looks like a Stewart Dress tartan but not exactly the same either). The second problem is that there is no source whatsoever. Unless somebody has proof for the above, it should be wiped out.

2. The Vestiarium Scoticum listed the MacLeod tartan that is shown on this page. However, the actual MacLeod tartan has two main versions (#1272 and #1583). The one in this article is solely for the MacLeod of Lewis (#1272). The other is uniquely for the MacLeod of Harris (#1583). Both setts can be seen here: Clan MacLeod#Clan tartan.

A note for Clan MacLeod which spanned across Lewis, Harris and Skye would be appropriate.

There are other variations of the MacLeod of Harris that I won't discuss because I don't think we need to get in so much detail and make things complicated more than needed for most of the audience.

3. The Macqueen should only show the official/standard sett. I don't see why the clan's tartan appears twice and why the second instance displays two versions at the same time.

4. The Burberry tartan is labeled as "Burberry Check" but I do not see any confirmation that "Check" is part of the official name in either "SRT". or "STA".. Unless somebody proves that "Check" is integral part of the name for the tartan, "Check" should disappear.

5. The West Virginia University tartan should have an image that is a square like all the other tartans.

ICE77 (talk) 03:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Vestiarium Scoticum is a proven fraud and is not a reliable source, so we do not actually care what it says at all. We do care what the preponderance of modern reference works on tartans have to say (including the online ones, SRT, STA, and STWR).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:18, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Cornish digression

CSouthcott added at least 8 tartans and all of them in the Cornish section. As much as I like tartans, especially the Cornish National, I think this expansion is totally unnecessary, especially for the multiple variations of the same sett and for the family names. The Cornish-tagged tartans are essentially a variation of the same sett and therefore redundant. The family tartans are not so important to be listed in this article. If ancient, modern, hunting, dress, dancing and all variations of tartans are listed then this file will have thousands of tartans. It doesn't make any sense. I think it's more important to reorganize the page as I pointed out previously and list the most important tartans. Any additional tartan is digression or too much information.

ICE77 (talk) 06:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, one variation per pattern is sufficient.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:23, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Messy table

Resolved

 – This has since been fixed.

This needs to be sorted, probably by clan name/surname or other entity name (e.g. Black Watch). Right now, it's just a completely random jumble.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Bogus source

The Vestiarum Scoticum has been exposed as a fraud perpetrated by the Sobieski Stuarts, since at least the 1980s (work primarily done by J. Charles Thompson, a fellow of the Scottish Tartans Society). We should not be trying to rely on it here, much less treating it as authoritative of "ancient origins". Way too much myth-making nonsense surrounds tartans, and we have to do a better job. Right now, we're buying into every bit of sales nonsense perpetuated by Highland wares marketers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:53, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Since there was no objection after about a week, I have removed the "Listed in the Vestiarum Scoticum" notes from the table.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:22, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in the background of the VS, see this article at the Scottish Tartans Authority site.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

We need to establish some inclusion criteria. There are over 7,000 tartans as of around 2006, so it's probably more like 8,000+ now. It is not possible to list them all here; many people's browsers would crash trying to load even a fraction of that page. I would suggest we settle on the following:

For inclusion in the list, at least one of the following criteria should be met. Reliable sources confirm that the tartan is:

• Of a notable clan, family, or surname (Scottish or otherwise)
• Of a notable district, city, and other geographical location
• Of a notable organisation, and the tartan has ongoing use in public and not just for internal functions or a specific event
• Of a member of the nobility with their own personal tartan, and the tartan is well-known
• Compliant the WP:General notability guideline even if not encompassed by any of the above.

The list only provides one colour-variation example per general sett, and one alphabetical spot in the list per family or organisation (name variants can be addressed within that entry), though multiple distinct tartans meeting the above criteria might be shown for any given such entity. For tartans that are the subject of their own list (e.g. List of U.S. state tartans), they will remain in that side list which will be cross-referenced from this one.

This would permit listing of things like a tartan for a Welsh family (if we have an article on the family name), a tartan for an Irish county, a tartan for a military unit (even a US one), a tartan for a long-running series of events (a form of organisation), etc. It would exclude a personal tartan, a tartan for a family/surname about which we have no article (though I would say any legitimate Scottish clan is presumptively notable, even if we are missing articles on some of them – perhaps the only red links to permit in this list), a tartan for a one-off event, a tartan for a non-notable company or other organisation, a tartan that a company just registered but does not publicly use, and other WP:NFT claptrap.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Updates: I forgot to include nobles with individual and well-known tartans; added that as the fourth bullet. I checked, and judging from Template:Scottish clans, all of the clans with current chiefs have articles, but only about half of the armigerous clans do, and that's just a fraction of notable families/surnames. Also accidentally had "non-notable" in there for organisations. And had to think of a way to preclude entries like the spammy one I deleted (for a notable organization, but showing a tartan they insist is for internal use only, i.e. will not be generally known to the public, i.e. fails WP:NOT#INDICRIMINATE). Accounted in bullet no. 5 for GNG cases that might be unusual (e.g. some celebrity's tartan that received multiple instances of non-trivial independent secondary coverage; or a "folk sett" like Border tartan).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:46, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

While I agree with what you are suggesting, we could actually have separate articles for the different categories of tartans. That way more could be included.QuintusPetillius (talk) 17:19, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, and ultimately this might become a list-of-lists page. We already have various such side lists, but it doesn't help us keep this list under WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE control; people are still going to want to inject unencyclcopedic claptrap. [See, e.g., the request to add the Welsh surname Bowen/Owen, below.] And we were not making proper use of this side-lists feature; I found that all of the extant lists had their entire contents (of US state tartans, Canadian province ones, and Cornish national and family ones) also in this list, which defeated the purpose of the side lists. I've replaced their blocks in this list with cross-references. The proposed inclusion criteria above are only to do with this particular list, which has to be kept to a manageable size (but only has a small fraction of the content it should have even if it were just limited to notable clans, families, surnames, and places of Scotland in particular). Anyway, I'm not trying to suggest that these criteria would necessarily apply to every article. If one were doing an article on, say, "Tartans of Ayr" it might actually be worth including reliably sourced information on a tartan appearing in a 17th century painting in the local museum which was subsequently repurposed as the official tartan of some local school; it would suit the scope of the piece. Someone coming for our main list of tartans, though, isn't looking for ultra-obscure things like that. With at least 8,000 tartans registered in SRT and other databases, it's almost a miracle someone hasn't done a massive dump into this article (it's probably the fiddly nature of wikitables that's forestalled it!).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:46, 14 March 2020 (UTC); revised: 23:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Government / military tartans

I wanted to have, in one place, a statement of the various tartans used by the Royal Regiment of Scotland, to explain why their various pipes and drums wear different tartans, and also to try to clear up the confusion between 1 and 1A. This page seemed the best place to add it. Other pages can then refer to this.

I am not an expert in this and make no claim that this is comprehensive or even completely correct.

The MOD standard still lists Government 3 (Gordon) and Government 9 (Forbes) as current but I can't find any units using them.

The MOD standard says that Government 1A is defunct and lists "Royal Regiment of Scotland" instead, but the RRS Dress Code still specifies "1A", so I assume they are for practical purposes the same. I'm not sure at saying 1A is Sutherland, anyone with more knowledge is welcome to clarify.

The previous text on the page is contradictory as to whether the Scots Guards pipers wear Royal Stewart or House of Stewart.

I'm sure there are more images available for insertion, I've run out of time...Johnstoo (talk) 12:16, 13 April 2021 (UTC) Part of my intention was to show how the various tartans used by the Royal Regiment of Scotland originated from the antecedent regiments. But with the 2021 disbanding of 1 SCOTS, some of those tartans have now passed out of current military usage, so if this list was strictly of current tartans only, that aspect of the heritage of RRS would be lost. I have solved this by stating that the list is as of the creation of RRS in 2006, leaving 1 SCOTS in the table, but adding a footnote stating that 1 SCOTS P&D are now disbanded.Johnstoo (talk) 09:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

@Johnstoo: This is a good idea for a split-off article, since most of those tartans are also clan tartans (e.g. Black Watch = "Old" Campbell) so end up double-listed here. Another benefit of putting that sublist in its own page is the ability to categorize it under military categories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:20, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Actually, now that I've worked up the regimental material at Tartan so much that it's split to a new Regimental tartan article, that is the obvious place to move this table of modern regimental tartans to. I could do it right now, but I've been trying to fill in the missing-tartan gaps in it first. I guess the order of operations doesn't really matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:51, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

District tartans of Scotland

The "Regional tartans" section needs a subsection on and should probably be dominated by the actually Scottish district tartans.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:16, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

District tartans of Ireland

This needs to exist as an article, and be linked here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm actually now skeptical. From the research I've done, they Irish district tartans were just created without consultation with any of the Irish governmental bodies, but one of the tartan mills as a marketing thing - stuff to sell to Americans. And another tartan mill has created a completely different competing set of them, for the same reason and also without any official recognition. I'm not sure it's a genuinely encyclopedic topic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Breton tartans

There are Breton tartans (from Brittany, France). I have seen several, and found a source for one of them here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:47, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Owen tartan

Missing is the Owen/Bowen tartan you can find references to this tartan at Bowen (surname). Catfurball (talk) 21:39, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Not of encyclopedic interest. A woollen mill in Wales is churning out (copyrighted) Welsh family-name tartans at a fast clip, but there's nothing noteworthy about them. There are at least 7,000 different tartans, and Wikipedia is not a database, including a tartan database. See TartanRegister.gov.uk for that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)