The first written references to the island are Roman sources such as the Ravenna Cosmography , which refer to Scitis and Scetis , which can be found on a map by Ptolemy . One possible derivation come from skitis , an early Celtic word for winged , which may describe how the island 's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre . Subsequent Gaelic- , Norse- and English @-@ speaking peoples have influenced the history of Skye ; the relationships between their names for the island are not straightforward . Various etymologies have been proposed , such as the " winged isle " or " the notched isle " but no definitive solution have been found to date and the placename may be from an earlier , non @-@ Gaelic language .