What is the name of the saint after whom the island was named St Kilda?

Question

In the British Isles there is an island named St Kilda. What is the name of the saint after whom the island was named?

Answer 1

There is no such saint.

Answer 2

here is no known saint by the name of Kilda, and various theories have been proposed for the origin of the name. Maclean (1972) suggests it may come from a curruption of the Old Norse name for the spring on Hirta, Tobar Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it may be a corruption of Culdee the name for anchorites who may (or may not) have brought Christianity to the island, or a corruption of the gaelic name, the islanders tending to pronounce ‘r’ as ‘l’ and thus habitually referring to the island as Hilta.

Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map of 1666 and that it may have been derived from Old Norse sunt kelda meaning sweet wellwater or from the Dutch assuming that Tobar Childa (Scots Gaelic; well of childa) was dedicated to a saint. Maclean also suggests that the Dutch may have simply made a cartographical error and confused Hirta with Skildar, the old name for an island much nearer the west coast of the Outer Hebrides.

The origin of Hirta is similarly open to interpretation. Maclean offers several options including an (unspecified) Celtic word meaning gloom or death, or the Scots Gaelic h-Iar-Tir meaning westland. Drawing on an Icelandic saga describing an early 13th century voyage to Ireland which mentions a visit to the islands of Hirtir, he also speculates that the shape of Hirta resembles a stag, Hirtir being the Old Norse for stags.

Answer 3

i have not been able to find the name of the saint but did find this wonderful site on St Kilda & came to know a lot about its past & present. if u are interested please look it up :

http://www.kilda.org.uk/

Answer 4

origin of names. click on it