Angus (given name)

Angus is an English language masculine given name. It is an Anglicised form of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic name Aonghas (also spelt Aonghus), which is composed of Celtic elements meaning "one" and "choice". Short forms of the name include Gus, which may be lengthened to Gussie, and Irish Naos.^[1] Angie (/ˈæŋɡiː/ ANG-ghee; Scottish Gaelic: Angaidh) is a common pet form of the name. The feminine form of Angus is Angusina.^[2]

The earliest form of the given name Angus, and its cognates, occurs in Adomnán's Vita Columbae (English: "Life of Columba") as Oinogusius, Oinogussius. This name likely refers to a Pictish king whose name is recorded variously as Onnust, Hungus.^[1]

According to historian Alex Woolf, the early Gaelic form of the name, Oengus, was borrowed from the Pictish Onuist, which appears in Brythonic as Ungust. Woolf noted that these names are all derived from the Celtic *Oinogustos.^[3] Linguist John Kneen derived this name from two Celtic elements the following way: *Oino-gustos, meaning "one-choice".^[4] Woolf also stated that between about AD 350 and AD 660, the Insular Celtic dialects underwent changes which included the loss of the final syllables and unstressed vowels, which affected *Oinogustos thus: *Oinogustos.^[5]