Craigge belongs to the Craig name-family, and the doubled g is a clerk's habit rather than proof of a separate line of descent.
Scottish writing offices doubled consonants for reasons unconnected to speech. A final -gge closed a word tidily or matched what the previous clerk had written. Spelling settled late in Scotland, and surnames last of all.
So the question is not what Craigge means on its own. It is what the Craig root means, and why this spelling stuck when everybody else let it go.
Where Did the Second G Come From?
The variation is visible in the most famous list of Scottish names there is. The Ragman Rolls of 1296, recording the Scots who swore homage to Edward I, contain Anneys del Crage in Edinburgh and Johan del Cragge in Lanarkshire. Two clerks, one royal exercise, two spellings of the same phrase: the person from the crag.
The ordinary Scots word drifted in step. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language date crag in Older Scots to around 1145, mostly inside place names, and note that the craig spelling does not appear until 1535. Everything in between was fair game.
Craigge belongs in that window: Middle Scots orthography frozen by one register entry a family then copied forward. Our guide to how Scottish surname meanings are established explains why the earliest form outweighs the modern one.
What Does the Craig Root Mean, and Which Craig?
A rock, and an abrupt one. Scots craig comes from Gaelic and Irish creag, a reduced form of carraig, and covers a cliff, a steep face on hillside or shore, and a projecting spur of stone. The compound craig-and-tail names the landform Edinburgh's Old Town is built along.
Because that was everyday vocabulary, it threw off surnames independently in different districts at different times, the signature of a topographic name and the pattern behind the Carse surname.
There is therefore no single Craig to descend from. Estates of the name sit in Angus, Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire, and plenty of bearers were simply men living beside a known rock. The record holds both kinds: Johannes del Crag witnessing a charter around 1165, and James del Crag in 1323 as son and heir of John del Crag in Ayrshire, which shows a landholding family rather than a cottar. Our fuller account of the Craig surname and its Ayrshire ground takes that line forward.
Does Craigge Show Up in the Records?
Thinly, and not where a Scottish name should. Ancestry indexes roughly 750 entries under the spelling, but about 300 are user-built trees rather than documents.
Its own census breakdown is blunter. Ancestry places Craigge in the United States and Canada between 1911 and 1920, and finds two households in the 1920 census, both in New York, which it reckons is about half of every American Craigge recorded that year.
Two households is not a surname. It is a spelling kept by very few families, most likely fixed by a North American registrar rather than a Scottish session clerk. Names in that position are commoner than people expect, as our list of rare clan names shows.
How Should a Craigge Family Be Traced?
- Search Craigge, Craig, Craige, Cragg, Cragge and Craigie as one set. A wildcard such as crag* catches most at once.
- Cross the Atlantic first. The documented material is American and Canadian, so census, naturalization and passenger lists come before anything Scottish.
- In Scotland, work backward from a statutory certificate, following our guide to Scotland's 1855 civil registration.
- Anchor on a county, not a spelling. Craigs in Angus and Craigs in Ayrshire are usually unrelated, and the surname alone will never separate them.
Own a Piece of Craigge Heritage
Whichever clerk froze this spelling, it is the version that goes on the goods: a garden flag, a framed keepsake ornament and a mug, all built around the crest on tartan. The Craig tartan in circulation is a twentieth-century weaver's design rather than an old sett, and nothing ties it to the Craigge spelling in particular, so read the weave here as decorative. Our piece on tartan and who is free to wear it shows where the real lines fall.
Craigge Family Crest Garden Flag
Frequently Asked Questions About the Craigge Name
Is Craigge a real Scottish surname?
A real spelling of a real Scottish surname. Craigge has no separate origin, lands or early bearers of its own, and every explanation runs through Craig.
What does Craigge mean?
Through Craig, a rock or crag. The root is Gaelic creag, taken into Scots as craig, describing a cliff or a steep outcrop rather than a hill.
Is there a Craigge clan or tartan?
No chief and no clan structure. A Craig tartan is woven and sold, but it is a modern design rather than a historic entitlement, and no sett has ever been recorded to the Craigge spelling. Craig itself is a topographic surname rather than a Highland clan, the ordinary position for a landscape word.
Sources and Further Reading
- Dictionaries of the Scots Language: craig — the Gaelic creag derivation and the 1145 and 1535 dates.
- Surname Database: Craig — the early bearers of 1165, 1296 and 1323.
- The Ragman Rolls — why so many Scottish surnames surface in 1296.
- Ancestry: Craigge record counts — the indexed footprint and the 1920 New York households.
- George F. Black, The Surnames of Scotland — the standard reference for checking any variant.
- Scotland's People — statutory registers, censuses and Old Parish Registers, with wildcard searching.
Kept the double g? The Craigge pieces are here to see, and the name search at the top of this page holds 2,000-plus besides.