Cumbernauld - The Origin of the Name
Cumbernauld is usually interpreted as deriving from the Gaelic Cumar-nan-Alt, "the Meeting of the Waters", being a reference to the close proximity of the headwaters of the Luggie Water and the Red Burn, beside the Village. This derivation has been disputed but when it is understood that the Luggie is a tributory of the Kelvin, flowing westwards to the Clyde and that the Red Burn joins the Bonny, then Carron, flowing eastwards to the Forth, it becomes obvious that Cumbernauld stands on the watershed of Scotland and thus the full meaning of the name becomes clear.
Geographical Location
As the derivation of the names imply, the District stands athwart the centre of Scotland, midway on the narrow waist between Forth and Cludy, the shortest route between tidal waters. The Romans understood this very well when they built their Antonine Wall here and so did the canal engineers 1600 years later. Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, therefore, lay astride communications rather than being at their centre, but were important strategically, nevertheless, for that very reason. That is why the Comyns placed a castle at Cumbernauld, and the Earls of Lennox one each at both Kelvesith and Moniebrugh. Later, the Flemings made Cumbernauld the main seat of thearldom - it was, of course, on the south side of the marshy belt of the Kelvin-Bonny valley, and conveniently near Sitrling, the principal gateway between North and South Scotlnd since Roman times. With the growth of Glasgow in the seventeenth century, Bo'ness became its port of acces to the North trade development of road and rail transport in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries highlighted Cumbernauld's central position and the New Town came into being - a modern justification of an ancient theme.