Outlander stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe in a still image from season 1

‘Outlander’: Why Does Jamie Call Claire Sassenach?

Claire has been called many nicknames on ‘Outlander,’ but one from Jamie — Sassenach — is the one that actually stuck.

by Perry Carpenter

Published on March 25, 2023

3 min read

‘Outlander’ author Diana Gabaldon researched Gaelic when writing her first book

Author Diana Gabaldon began writing her Outlander novel series back in the late 1980s, and the first book was published in 1991. As a college professor with extensive research skills, Gabaldon went to great lengths to weave actual historical events into the Outlander narrative. She also included accurate traditions, customs, and language.

Because a large part of Jamie and Claire’s story takes place in 18th-century Scotland, Gabaldon made a point to sprinkle bits of Gaelic into the text to add some “flavor of the language.”

“Very early on I began doing research as much as I could into Gaelic. While I don’t speak Gaelic by any stretch of the imagination, we want a few little terms and sentences scattered around to give a flavor of the language,” Gabaldon told Town & Country.

Why does Jamie call Claire Sassenach?

The literal definition of the Gaelic world is: “Outlander or foreigner. More specifically an English person. Usage is generally derogatory.”

As fans of Gabaldon’s books — and the Starz Outlander adaptation — know, Sassenach is actually Jamie’s pet name for Claire. Even though it is a derogatory Gaelic term for “foreigner,” the author says that Jamie adopts this word as a term of endearment for Claire.

“Well, I had this English woman showing up, and I did know that Sassenach is in fact a fairly derogatory term for someone who is a foreigner, but specifically for an English person given the long and acrimonious relationship between England and Scotland. So, it seemed natural that someone would refer to Claire as a Sassenach,” Gabaldon explained.

“To start with, she has a slight idea that it’s a derogatory term, but she knows he’s plainly not trying to insult her. He’s just pointing out that she’s strange.”

Whenever Jamie calls Claire a Sassenach throughout the series, he is doing it with love because one of the things that attract him to her is that she is an English woman.

“He kind of likes to think of it as ‘I’ve got one of their women,” Gabaldon said.

‘Outlander’ will only last 8 seasons on Starz

The Starz version of Gabaldon’s time-traveling drama has remained relatively faithful to the books during its run, with one season covering the corresponding book. Gabaldon is currently writing the tenth and final book in the Outlander saga, and fans expected 10 seasons in total. But, it was recently revealed that the TV series would end after season 8.

The season 8 announcement has sparked a ton of questions about how they could possibly end the series without Gabaldon’s final book.

Will she let producers in on her planned ending and let them use it for the TV show? Will Jamie and Claire’s story end on TV before the end of the story in the books? Will they try to cram three books’ worth of story lines into the final season? Could they possibly wrap up the series with a movie? Fans will just have to wait and see.