Blair Collection > Place names in Strathbogie, with notes historical, antiquarian and descriptive

Names of Hills and Rivers. 33
name is Douern (Spald. CI. Ant, I. p. 467).
From this time forward, during nearly 400 years,
the name appears in charters and other writings
in the forms of Dowerne, Dovern, Doverne,
Duvern, and Duverne, During the next 200
}-cars the old forms occasionally appear, but
more frequently the spelling is Doveran, which
in recent times has been supposed to be the
proper form. For the last 20 or 30 years the
spelling has followed the common pronunciation,
Deveron, sometimes pronounced as three syl-
lables, and frequently as two. The popular
idea has been, for a very long time, that Doverne
means ' black water,' which it might naturally do,
as in this sense the name would be appropriate,
and the largest affluent in the upper strath is the
Blackwater. I have also found the name apply-
ing to a small stream in the parish of Lethnot,
Forfarshire. It appears in the map as Differan,
but I have not discovered an old form. This
burn is also a dark water rising in a moss.
It appears to me that all attempts to explain
Deveron, or Doverne, as meaning ' black-water,'
have failed, and so far as I see, the only plausible
explanation yet proposed is that suggested by
Dr. Joyce (Vol. II. p. 403). He derives it from
the obsolete word dob/iar, 'water,' diminutive dobh-
aj-an, (bh = v). While this is the only etymology
which appears at all possible, it is not without its
difficulties. It corresponds only with a modern
D