The name is taken from one of the individual hills in the range, called Campsie; meaning "crooked fairy hill", from the Scottish Gaelic cam, meaning "crooked", and sìth meaning "fairy". "Fell" originates from the Old Norse word fjall, meaning "hill".[5]
The Campsie Fells have cemented their place in history as the birthplace of Scottish skiing, when William W. Naismith of Glasgow skied the area, becoming the first ever man to ski in Scotland in March 1892.[7] The Monty Python film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life used the Campsies as a location, standing in for Natal during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. On one day it was so cold that the extras acting as the Zulu warriors refused to put on their costumes and that day's filming was abandoned.[8]