The strongest and longest-lasting Scandinavian impact on the place names of Scotland took place in the Northern Isles – Shetland and Orkney. Harald pursued his enemies and incorporated the Northern Isles into his kingdom in 875 and then, perh… A thorpe was an outlying farmstead, one that probably relied on a larger settlement nearby for protection. Thwaite comes from the Norse thveit, meaning a clearing or meadow. Whereas the ends of names can still suggest that a place has Viking history, with suffixes such as: -thorpe, -by, -thwaite, and -kirk to name a few. Viking place names in Scotland. The book has various sections devoted to Viking history, language, religion and social customs which are reflected in the place names, showing that from an early age, 9 th /10 th c., that they had settled this area to the same extent as the author had found in most of southern Scotland. According to the Orkneyinga Saga, about 872 Harald Fairhair became King of a united Norway and many of his opponents fled to the islands of Scotland. Scandinavian place names in Scotland can be divided into four areas, influenced by different phases of settlement. Shetland and Orkney. The Northern Isles were "Pictish in culture and speech" prior to the Norse incursions, and although it is recorded that Orkney was "destroyed" by King Bridei in 682 it is not likely that the Pictish kings exerted a significant degree of ongoing control over island affairs. The following place names are either derived from Scottish Gaelic or have standard Gaelic …