Athol

Athol is a name used for places and people. As a geographic toponym, it refers most prominently to Athol, Massachusetts, a town in Worcester County, United States. The name is also associated with a broader Scottish heritage through variants of the toponym Atholl, which appears in places such as Blair Atholl in Perthshire. In Scotland, Athol is linked to historical titles and regions, and the spelling Athol is sometimes encountered as a simplified or Anglicized form of Atholl.

As a given name, Athol is used in English-speaking countries. It is most commonly encountered as a male name. Notable individuals bearing the name include Athol Fugard, a South African playwright and author born in 1932, known for works that address South African social and political issues.

In addition to its use as a place name and given name, Athol sometimes appears in literature and local histories as part of place-name derivations that reflect Scotland’s influence on emigration patterns and naming practices. The spelling variant Atholl is more common in Scottish contexts, where it denotes specific districts and titles, such as the Duke of Atholl. Overall, Athol functions primarily as a geographic and personal name with cultural ties to Scottish and Anglo-American naming traditions.