Do Tartans Have Secret Meanings???

What do the lines in a tartan mean?
Do the colors of a tartan have special meaning?
Does the thread count of a tartan have any meaning?
Is there a tartan code?

Why do clans have different tartans?
How do you know which tartan to wear?

Tartan (sometimes called plaid by mistake) is a patterned cloth consisting of crisscrossed threads of different colors. The number of threads is what differentiates the pattern.

Over time, many people have come to believe that the shades of colors in tartan have a specific meaning - or a code. For example that “red means courage,” or “white means purity.”

Is this purely myth? Yes and no. While there is no such hidden code, modern tartans are often created with the intention of ascribing meaning to some aspect of the design, especially colors.

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Located in Spring City PA, USA Kilts is a team of American kilt makers who have been making men’s kilts in authentic clan tartans since 2003. We craft a full range of kilts right in our shop, from our budget casual kilt to our traditional machine sewn, hand-finished 8-Yard kilt. We specialize in all aspects of highland wear and Celtic clothing including Scottish, Irish and Welsh kilts and accessories.

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[ianbarkham]

Originally, the tartans were dyed using materials from the locality, as such they would blend into the background. and were therefore a form of camouflage

[pat]

Really enjoying your YouTube channel guys. Keep up the great work. From New Zealand.

[rliability]

Why I love the State of Michigan tartan is that while its bust with colors, it's all symbolic. Blue for the Great lakes, green for forests, tan for coasts/beaches, white for snow, red for cherries.

[brickempire]

I just learned my family's name dates back to 1363 in southern Scotland. That's pretty cool to me

[carmendavidson]

I see Davidson modern and Davidson ancient in the bookshelf behind you. But yet I've never heard the channel speak of them.

[thescepticalscotsman]

I have been told that one of my great Aunts had the original tartan or pattern for the Clan Cunningham that traced back to about 1870. The pattern itself tells who is in the lineage down to that point. Just contributing what I know.

[michaelconley]

Do you have a video that breaks down the different parts of the kilt for better comprehension and understanding the language... especially for those looking to create a design?

[kiltymacbagpipe]

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police tartan has lots of symbolism in its colours. Plus it’s a very good looking tartan.

[Thor-Orion]

1:25 because they’re stylish, of course. I’m a fairly small percentage Scottish and I still want a kilt. The kilt cut for bottoms existed for millennia throughout Europe. Modern “fashion” is so bland and unappealing. We need a new cultural revolution to make society suck less. Kilts are part of my vision for a better future.

[donnawilson]

As a youngster I was a highland dancer and always wondered where the colours came from and the meaning behind them. Now I know the you.

[adodgin]

I had read somewhere that the Jacobite tartan did have meaning ascribed to its colors. The white being for the white rose of the Stuart monarchy and the red for revolution. Is that not correct?

[SkylerLinux]

On the looks good, I like the Earth Rise tartan design. I think it looks very nice

[ronnieshaw]

I am a Shaw.
The modern Shaw tartan is Black Watch tartan with a red line representing the blood of Fearchar Shaw who was executed for mutiny in the Black Watch

[straycat]

You know, I have to be honest. I’ve debated whether or not I even want to add a meaning to the colors in the personal family tartans I’ve created. But that being said, I have two separate designs each with various color variations. But in those two separate designs I do have a set of lines that have a very specific meaning. In one it’s an interior set and the other it’s the exterior set. I did this differentiate the two. And they simply represent generations. Past present and future generations.

[boriskarloff]

If you are unsure of your clan affiliation theres a great little color picture book called The Scottish Tartans. Histories of the clans, chiefs arms and clansman badges. The Author is Johnston and Bacon. 1975. 1st print 1948. I am Farquharson. Originally French servants of Mary Queen of Scots in the 1560s.

[stacygirard]

i think many of canadian tartan does have color meaning
example maple leaf the collor represent the 4 seasons of the maple leaf here waht it says in the tartan register

The colours of the maple leaf through the changing seasons became the basis for this asymmetric tartan designed by David Weiser in 1964.
(edit)

oups i noticed later you talke dabout the maple leaf(canadia national tartan)
i wrote the first part after you mention nova scotia

[Absolutely_Cece]

Wondering if you've heard of Schoolbraids surname and is there a tartan for this surname?

[chrisjustus]

Have any tartans or a tartan ever had its field decreased or enlarged and still be regarded as the same tartan?

[johnmichael]

Willam of Occam never said anything like "the simplest explanation is the right one." What he said was "we ought not to multiply [unfalsifiable] variables unnecessarily." He was talking about how the more unfalsifiable variables there are in an answer, the harder it is to yield a viable statistic with a calculable margin of error.

That was the phrase which was turned into Occam's Razor, which almost everyone completely misunderstands and horribly abuses. It was only a recommendation about how to do experimentation - or how to ask questions in a way that can be answered by experiments. It was not a rule, and it had nothing to do with the actual conclusions being right or wrong, but rather to do with them delivering an answer that could be discussed in scientific terms (i.e. as quanta, qualia, and probability).

[ronschwigel]

do family names have there own tartan designs like mckenna or russell families