DERIVATION. It has been traditional to interpret Ptolemy's first syllable Lou- as Latin Lu-, but as Jackson points out in général ternis in LHEB 34, the Celtic sound [ou] may be rendered ou in Ptolemy's Greek, though one would expect oou. Since *leuco- is found in other British names and since *louco- is the same element with vowels at a different stage of development (compare Loucetio Marti and see LHEB 306—307, etc.) it seems reasonable to suggest that here we have *leuco- again; see, then, LEUCA. This was Jackson's suggestion in a note to LHEB 307: 'read perhaps Loukobia = *Loucouia < *Leucouia', which we are happy to adopt. Other possibilities such as *luco- 'marsh' (mentioned by Whatmough DAG 512 in discussing the possibility that Lutecia-Paris-  is for *Lucotecia), and *loucos *locos 'lieu de réunion' (RIO, xxv (1973), 203) are less attractive; they take Ptolemy's first syllable at its usual value, but leave the rest unexplained. Pokorny's notion in Vox Romanica, x (1948—49), 229, that the name might properly be *Louk-upia 'WeiBbach', *upia being a word for 'river' with Illyrian connections, seems perverse.

The suffix in our proposed version is *-ouio (see CANOVIUM), hee apparently a kind of feminine as in Vinovia. It is curious that in the present case we have evidence of both -ia and -ium endings, precisely as for Vinovia— Vinovium.

IDENTIFICATION. Probably the Roman fort at Glenlochar, Kircudbrightshire (NX 7364); since this is on the dee (DEVA ²), the reference would be to a 'shining' reach of the river".