I believe that I have solved the riddle of the origin of our surname. I have a degree in History and was elected to Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honorary in 1970, and have been a member ever since. Being bent toward history, I had long puzzled over the mystery of the Scottish Loch Katrine, the English village of Kettering, the French and Spanish and Portuguese surname of Catron, the Italian Catroni, Livy's Alpine Ceutrone tribe of Celts who attacked Hannibal's elephants, and the Bavarian Ketring, Kettering and Kettenring.
The only thing these countries had in common in this matter is that each was a Celtic land before the Roman conquests. The similarities and antiquity of these names led me to believe that they are of Celtic origin. The final clue came from the Compact Edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language (1971) definition of "cateran."
Cateran. Forms: katherinck, katharin, catherein, kettrin, kaitrine, catheran, katheran, cateran. (Lowland Scots catherein, kettrin, appears to represent Gaelic ceathairne collective 'peasantry', whence ceathairneach 'sturdy fellow' (McAlpine); Cormac has Irish ceithern, which O' Donovan renders 'band of soldiers', thence ceithernach 'one of a band'. The th has long been mute in Celtic, and the Irish ceithern is phonetically represented by English Kern. It is not easy to account for the preservation of the dental in Lowland Scots, unless perhaps through the intermediation of medieval Irish as in Bowers' cateranos. Stokes refers ceithern to Old Irish keitern, Old Celtic keterna, a feminine a-stem.Highland caterans.1. a. prop. a collective sb. Common people of the Highlands in a troop or band, fighting men. Hence b. One of a Highland band; a Highland irregular fighting man, reiver, or marauder. 1371-90 Statutes 12 Robert II (James) Of Ketharines or Sorneris. They quha travells as ketharans etand the cuntrie and takand their gudis be force and violence. 1430 Bower, Comin. Fordus 1396, (James) Per duos pestiferos cateranos et eoram sequaces. 1505 Dunbar, Sir T. Norvay 13, Full many catherein hes he cheistAmang thai dully glennis. 15-- Scottish Field in Furniv. Percy Folio I. 219 There came at his commandement: Ketherinckes full many from Orkney that Ile. 1768 Ross, Helenore 120 (James) Ask yon highland kettrin what they mean. 1816 Scott. Old Mort. vi, Grahame of Montrose and his
2. gent Brigand, freebooter, marauder. 1870 Lowell, Study Wind, 216, The statecraft of an Ithacan cateran.
1880 Mrq. Salisbury in Manch. Guard. 17 Oct. They (the Montenegrins) are caterans, cattle-lifters.
Two centuries after the event, Livy, in his History of Rome, wrote of the Celtic Ceutrone attacking Hannibal's elephants in the Alps in 218 B.C. He thought Ceutrone was the name of a tribe of Celts. I believe he was mistaken. They were an irregular band of Celtic fighting men who attacked when Hannibal's quartermasters failed to pay for provisions bought from the locals.
When the Germanic Saxons and Angles drove the Celts out of England, circa 800 A.D., they naturally Germanized the local Celtic place name into Kettering; and Loch Katrine, just north of Glaegow, Scotland, is, obviously, the Lake of the Warriors. As the definition's examples show, the Celtic word means a raider, marauder, reiver, rustler, guerrilla fighter, etc. to the English.
MacFarlane's Gaelic Dictionary has helpful definitions. Ceathairne means yeomanry, men fit for warfare. Ceatharn is a troop or company of soldiers. Ceatharnach means a kern, a stout, trusty peasant. It is obviously the singular of ceathairne and of ceatharn. Over the centuries, the th has become silent in Irish. Kern is the Irish pronunciation of our name. But more interestingly,ceatharnas means heroism. Ceatharn or cateran or ketring meant hero to the Celts and meant marauder to their enemies.
It is easy to see that in Celtic England and Bavaria the ketherinck form has been Germanized into Kettering. The K to G consonantal shift is obvious and negligible. Ketring and Kettering are nonsensical words in German, but Kettenring means chain-mail, the ancient armor, so in Bavaria the name appears to have transformed into something that made sense in German. I believe the name has no more than a coincidental connection to log chains or chainmail.
When the Bavarian Kettenring family emigrated to America in the 1760's, they settled in Virginia and lived among the Scots-Irish Celts of Southwest Virginia. Their neighbors, county clerks, and paymasters seem to have transmuted their Germanized name back to Celtic in one generation. I realize that many Catrons cherish the German hansa; however, the name is far more ancient than the 1730 hansa of a farrier named Ketring.
I know several students of Irish history who fervently believe the first Ketring was one of the the Wild Geese, supporters of James II who left Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 to form the 'Irish Brigade' in Louis XIV's army. They believe he was fighting in the Palatinate, left military service and took his Germanized version of his occupation (Kettrin, Cateran) as his surname (Ketring). Nonetheless, whether Wild Goose or indigenous, the name is clearly Celtic for warriors.