Greenock

Greenock is a town and authoritative focus in the Inverclyde committee region in Scotland and a previous burgh inside the memorable province of Renfrewshire, situated in the west focal Lowlands of Scotland. It frames some portion of an adjacent urban region with Gourock toward the west and Port Glasgow toward the east. The 2011 UK Census demonstrated that Greenock had a populace of 44,248, a lessening from the 46,861 recorded in the 2001 UK Census. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the "Tail of the Bank" where the River Clyde ventures into the Firth of Clyde

The starting point of the name is obscure; Smith 1921 proposed that the Common Brittonic Graenag, a "gravelly" or "sandy place" precisely portrays the foreshore before the docks and wharfs were built, while the Gaelic alternatives of Grianach "radiant sound" or grian cnoc "bright slope" were seen by local people as less credible. Johnston 1934 takes note of that "a few Gaels call the seaport Ghonait", and that a conceivable inference might be greannach, signifying "unpleasant, gravelly". The choice of grian aig, from Gaelic words for "bright place" or "inlet", has been taken up by the nearby specialist as the Gaelic interpretation of the name. The name of the town has had different spellings after some time. It was imprinted in early Acts of Parliament as Grinok, Greenhok, Grinock, Greenhoke, Greinnock, and later as Greinok.