The crest of the chief of Innes is a boar’s head with the motto ‘Be Traist’, meaning something like ‘be faithful’ or ‘keep faith’, essentially encouraging the bearer to stand firm. The name Innes comes from the Gaelic word for Island.


James Innes of that Ilk had quartered his shield with three boars heads (along side the Inneses’ traditional three stars) by 1490 representing the Innes acquisition of the lands of Aberchirders through marriage. Although these are sometimes referred to as Bears or Wolfs. Although James’ arms had a helmet, there wasn’t yet a crest. By 1541 Alexander Innes of that Ilk was using a plume of feathers as a crest (Willam Rae MacDonald, Scottish Armorial Seals, 1904, 179-80).


Boars are one of the most popular symbols among the lairds and lords of Scotland, and this one may denote the family’s long association in the north of Scotland with the Gordon Earls of Huntly, whose crest in turn developed from a cluster of families in the Lothians centred on the once powerful Swintons – and with their name the boar’s head makes sense. Given these connections, the Innes’ boar crest may have developed from the Aberchirders’ boar/bear/wolf heads to more definitively be boars to symbolically align the kindred with their powerful Gordon allies.


Both crest and motto had been adopted by the time of Alexander Nisbet’s 1720s System of Heraldry. 



Our older Carrick version of the Innes Crest. 


MKP 13 Jan 2026