ORIGINSThere are several different stories about the origins of the Cardno family name. The journalist and
genealogist J.M.A. Wood found most members of the family believed that their ancestors were originally of
foreign extraction. Writing in the 1920s, he said “So strong is this tradition in the family today that to
suggest any other origin is at once tabooed.”
In one version, the family are of French extraction having accompanied the Fraser family from France at
the time of the Norman conquest, and that when the Frasers settled in Philorth they too settled in the
district and gave their name to the lands of Cardno.
Alternatively, when Lord Saltoun fighting the Royalist cause at the battle of Worcester fell wounded in
1651, he was dragged from the battlefield by a French mercenary, named Cardno. In gratitude for saving him,
Lord Saltoun brought the mercenary back with him to Fraserburgh.
A third story gives the family a Spanish origin, arriving in Aberdeenshire at the time of the Spanish
Armada when a seaman, probably called Cardino, was shipwrecked near Cairnbulg and then settled in the
district.
Other stories give the name an Italian origin. In one, “three brothers of the name during a religious
persecution in Italy had to fly their fatherland and sought refuge in Scotland and having found favour
with the then Lord Saltoun were settled on farms on his lordship's lands.” Another version says it was
an Italian marble merchant trading with the Fraserburgh area who liked the surrounding countryside and
stayed.
Cardno, however, is firmly a Scottish family name and derives from a placename (Black, 1926, p. 133).
The lands of Cardno lie to the south-west of Fraserburgh. The placename comes from the Gaelic carden, a
thicket, with the suffix –ach, meaning copse place (Nicolaison, 1976, p. 159; Watson, 1926, p.353).
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