Kentigern – Mungo – Quintin: all the same first name??

piankhy06
Jul 22
4 min read

Updated: Jul 29

It may be hard to believe but Kentigern, Mungo and Quintin are the same first name. Another way to put this is that Mungo and Quintin are diminutive names for Kentigern, though you will mainly find on the internet that Mungo is the nickname of Kentigern and as time progressed Mungo became the common/popular version.

The reason why these three very different names are actually the same name is due mainly to the Scottish, Saint Kentigern. During and after his lifetime he was referred to by both Mungo and Kentigern. I have not been able to discover the reasoning behind how Quintin (of various spellings) could be an equivalent to Kentigern/Mungo however I have come up with a potential reason for Quintin becoming interchanged is due to language. There is a point in time when ‘K’ was written using ‘Qu’. So, this means Kentigern could have been written as Quentin or Quintigern. There is even a location to this day called St Quintigern's Fountain, Kirsenin Well, Lilliesleaf.

Even though I do not know how these three first names came to mean equivalent first names, I can say I know with certainty that these three very different first names were interchanged for some men due to seeing the use of them in different charters. This interchanging I have seen most often occurred during the 1400 and 1500s. The following are four examples, in the book ‘The Rutherford’s in Britain A History and Guide’ it states the name of a Rutherford male (on page 105) as “Quentin or Kentigern”. In the text ‘Descriptions of the Sheriffdoms of Lanark and Renfew’ on page 94 there are two charters that include the same man, in one charter his name is written as Kentigerni Maxwell and in the other charter it is written as Mungow Maxwell. A third example is in the book ‘Registrum Cartarum Ecclesie Sancti Egidii de Edniburgh’ in the appendix on page xciv there the list states, “Altar of Saint Kentigern or Saint Mungo, …”. A fourth example is in the transcription of a charter (National Records of Scotland Catalogue, online database, https://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/nrsonlinecatalogue/welcome.aspx : accessed 24 May 2025, Reference GD1/35/1/2/1) dated 1435 Mungo de Redoll is recorded where in the actual charter is states Quintin de Redoll.

There are more examples within various documents over the centuries of these three names being interchange, most often Mungo and Quintin are interchanged and Kentigern and Mungo are most often interchanged. This means if you are researching a relative with the first name of Quintin or Mungo or Kentigern between the 1100s to 1600s it is strongly advised (especially in earlier time periods) you need to also look for the other versions. To add to this situation, I have seen all three first names with spelling variations, for example I have seen Quintin also written as Quintine, Quinton, Quentin, plus other ways; I have seen Mungo also written as Mungow, Mongo, Mongow; and Kentigern also written with different added endings like Kentigerni, or Kentigernus.

When I completed writing this up in preparation for this blog post I was still wanting to try further to find a reason for Quintin being in the mix. I decided as I was not able to discover a reason behind the interchanging of Quintin with mainly Mungo I would try AI (Copilot) to assist, to see if something could be found. The following arose after interacting with the AI and questioning what information it was presenting, I have removed one item as I was not confident about the source AI used to make the statement.

“🕊️ Ecclesiastical Influence

Saint Mungo (Kentigern) is widely recognized as the patron saint of Glasgow, with dedications across Scotland and northern England. His name appears in various forms, including Mo Choe and Mungo, in church records and place-names like Kirkmahoe and St Mungo’s Cathedral.^{1, 2}
Saint Quintin, though less prominent in Scottish tradition, has dedications such as St Quintin’s Church in Kirkmahoe, which is also associated with Kentigern.² This overlap suggests that local religious devotion may have influenced naming conventions, especially in ecclesiastical contexts.

📜 Scribal Variation or Reinterpretation

Scholars note that scribes often altered names based on phonetics, dialect, or personal interpretation, sometimes to reflect status or education.^{4, 5} This opens the possibility that Quintin could have been used as a formal or Latinized variant of Mungo, especially if the scribe was influenced by local saintly associations.

🧭 Regional Naming Customs

The Saints in Scottish Place-Names Project documents dedications to Kentigern under various names, including Mungo, Mo Choe, and even Quintigern.² The presence of St Quintin’s Church alongside Kentigern dedications in Kirkmahoe suggests a regional conflation or reinterpretation of saintly identities.
This kind of overlap is not unusual in medieval Scotland, where oral tradition, local veneration, and scribal habits often blurred distinctions between saints with similar attributes or names. ^{1, 6}