The far north of Scotland — the old counties of Caithness and Sutherland, reaching to the very tip of the British mainland at Dunnet Head and John o' Groats — is a landscape unlike anywhere else in the country. Here the Highland glens give way to the flat, wind-scoured peatlands of the Flow Country, the largest blanket bog in Europe, and the dramatic sea cliffs of the north coast face the Pentland Firth and, beyond it, Orkney. This is a borderland in the deepest sense: the meeting place of the Gaelic and the Norse worlds, where Viking earls ruled for centuries and where the place-names on the map — Thurso, Wick, Helmsdale, the endings in -ster and -bister and -dale — are as much Scandinavian as they are Gaelic.
The clans that emerged from this northern world carry that dual inheritance in their blood and their history. Some, like the Gunns, descend directly from Norse settlers and wear that ancestry openly. Others, like the MacKays, are Gaelic to the core yet held territory shaped by centuries of Norse contact. And over all of them loomed two great comital powers — the Earls of Sutherland and the Earls of Caithness — whose rivalries defined the politics of the far north for five hundred years. If your family comes from this corner of Scotland, your roots run into one of the most distinctive regional cultures in the whole of the Highlands.
Far North Clan Names at a Glance
The principal clans and families of Caithness, Sutherland and the far north include: Gunn, MacKay, Sinclair, Sutherland, Keith, Oliphant, Sutherland of Duffus, Bruce (of Caithness), Innes, Ross and Munro — with the Gaelic MacKays of Strathnaver and the Norse-descended Gunns standing at the heart of the region's story. If your family name connects to the far north, use the search bar above to find clan and heritage gifts for your surname.
Clan Gunn: The Norse Inheritance
Clan Gunn is one of the few Scottish clans whose Norse ancestry is not a matter of speculation but of clear tradition. The Gunns descend from Gunni, a Norse settler of the twelfth or thirteenth century whose own ancestry connected to the Norse earls of Orkney, and their territory across Caithness and eastern Sutherland placed them squarely in the old Norse sphere of the far north. Their motto, Aut Pax Aut Bellum — Either Peace or War — captures the uncompromising character of a clan that spent much of its history in fierce conflict with more powerful neighbours, particularly the Keiths and the Sinclairs. The bloody feud between the Gunns and the Keiths, which included a treacherous massacre at the chapel of St Tayre, is one of the darkest and most enduring stories of the northern clans. Though the Gunns lost their lands and never held a great castle, the clan's identity survived with remarkable tenacity, and Gunn descendants today are found across the diaspora world.
Clan MacKay: Warriors of Strathnaver
Clan MacKay held Strathnaver, the great river valley that runs through the heart of northern Sutherland, and were one of the most powerful Gaelic clans of the far north. Their name derives from the Gaelic Mac Aoidh, son of Aodh, and their motto Manu Forti — With a Strong Hand — reflects a martial tradition that saw MacKay regiments serve across Europe, most famously under the great mercenary general Mackay of Scourie in the service of the Dutch and in the wars of the seventeenth century. At their height the MacKay chief could raise several thousand fighting men, and the clan territory of the Mackay Country — Dùthaich MhicAoidh — covered a vast stretch of the north. The nineteenth century brought catastrophe: the MacKay lands were sold to the Sutherland estate, and Strathnaver became one of the epicentres of the Highland Clearances, its townships burned and its people driven to the coast or onto emigrant ships in some of the most notorious evictions in Scottish history.
Clan Sinclair: Earls of Caithness
Clan Sinclair came to dominate Caithness as its Earls from the fifteenth century onward, having earlier held the Earldom of Orkney under the Norwegian crown — a unique position that made the Sinclair chiefs vassals of two kingdoms at once. Of Norman origin, with their earlier seat at Rosslyn in Midlothian and its famous chapel, the Sinclairs moved their centre of power north and built Girnigoe Castle on a dramatic clifftop near Wick, one of the most spectacular castle ruins in Scotland. The Sinclair Earls of Caithness were formidable and often ruthless figures in northern politics, their power resting on control of the fertile Caithness lowlands and the fishing wealth of the coast. Their long rivalry with the Earls of Sutherland to the west shaped the whole political life of the far north, and the Sinclair name remains one of the most strongly associated with Caithness of any in Scotland.
Clan Sutherland: The Great Earldom
Clan Sutherland gave its name to the entire county and held one of the oldest earldoms in Scotland, dating to the early thirteenth century. The Earls of Sutherland ruled from Dunrobin Castle on the east coast near Golspie — a fairytale pile of turrets and spires, much remodelled in the nineteenth century, that remains one of the grandest houses in the north. Their motto, Sans Peur — Without Fear — reflects the ancient standing of a family that counted itself among the senior nobility of Scotland. Yet the Sutherland name carries a heavy and painful association: it was the management of the vast Sutherland estates in the early nineteenth century, under the Countess-Duchess of Sutherland and her commissioners, that produced the most infamous of all the Highland Clearances. The burning of the Strathnaver townships and the forced removal of thousands of people from the interior straths to make way for sheep remains one of the most bitterly remembered episodes in Highland history, and it sits in stark and uncomfortable contrast to the grandeur of Dunrobin.
Keith, Oliphant, and the Other Northern Families
Clan Keith, the hereditary Earls Marischal of Scotland, held lands in Caithness as well as in their northeastern heartland, and it was in the far north that their long and violent feud with Clan Gunn played out across the medieval centuries. The Keith presence in Caithness was part of the dense web of competing magnate families that made the far north such a contested region. Clan Oliphant held lands in Caithness around Berriedale and Dunbeath, their dramatic coastal castles perched above the North Sea reflecting a family of considerable standing in the medieval north. The Oliphants were of Norman origin like so many of the families who rose to prominence in medieval Scotland, and their northern estates connected them to the wider political world of Caithness and the comital rivalries that dominated it.
The Far North and the Clearances
No region of Scotland was more profoundly marked by the Highland Clearances than Sutherland and the far north. The interior straths — Strathnaver, Kildonan, the glens that fed the great rivers — had supported substantial Gaelic-speaking populations for centuries, communities whose way of life reached back into the clan world. Between roughly 1810 and 1830, those communities were systematically cleared to make way for large-scale sheep farming, their houses unroofed and burned, their people resettled on poor coastal crofts or shipped to Canada, Australia, and beyond. The Sutherland Clearances became the most documented and most controversial of all, in part because of their scale and in part because of the brutality with which they were carried out by factors such as Patrick Sellar.
The consequence is that the descendants of the far north are scattered across the world in numbers utterly disproportionate to the population that remains in Caithness and Sutherland today. The Gaelic of Strathnaver fell silent. The Red River Settlement in Canada, the communities of Nova Scotia and New Zealand, and the emigrant streams to the cities of the south all carried the people of the far north away from the land their families had held since the days of the Norse earls. For those researching a MacKay, Gunn, or Sutherland line, the trail very often leads from a cleared strath to a ship's manifest and a new life on another continent.
Frequently Asked Questions
What clan names come from Caithness and Sutherland?
The principal far-north names are Gunn, MacKay, Sinclair, Sutherland, Keith and Oliphant — with the MacKays holding Strathnaver, the Sinclairs ruling Caithness as Earls, and the Sutherlands holding the great earldom from Dunrobin.
Are far north clans Norse or Gaelic?
Both — the far north was where the two worlds met. The Gunns descend directly from Norse settlers connected to the earls of Orkney, while the MacKays are Gaelic to the core; the Sinclairs even held Orkney under the Norwegian crown before becoming Earls of Caithness. The region's place-names are a mix of Norse and Gaelic to this day.
Why are so many MacKay and Sutherland descendants overseas?
The far north suffered the most notorious of all the Highland Clearances. The Strathnaver and Kildonan townships were burned and cleared for sheep between 1810 and 1830, sending whole Gaelic-speaking communities to Canada, Nova Scotia, New Zealand and the cities of the south. If your MacKay or Sutherland line runs through a cleared strath to an emigrant ship, that is the classic far-north route.
Do far north clan names have tartans and family crests?
Yes — every clan above has its own tartan and crest tradition, from Gunn's "Either Peace or War" to Sutherland's "Without Fear." Search your surname in the bar at the top of this page to see yours.
Carry a Far North Name?
If your family carries one of these names, you can bring the north home: we make family crest woven blankets, mugs, garden flags, ornaments and more for the major Caithness and Sutherland names — Gunn, MacKay, Sinclair and Sutherland among them. Start with our gift guide for Sinclair, see how families display their crest at home, or — if your surname isn't an obvious clan name — check the A–Z Scottish sept list.
The Heritage Trio — a woven blanket for the sofa, a mug for the morning, a garden flag for the front of the house — keeps a far north name part of daily life, wherever the Clearances carried it. For the neighbouring regions, see our guides to the Clans of the Highlands and the Clans of Aberdeenshire and the North East — or start from the beginning with how to find your Scottish clan.
