[NON BLOG] On My Family Name
Feb. 7th, 2005 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldVia Ewan Innes' excellent Scottish History website, and his article "Mac vs Mc".
I tend to identify my father's family as Scottish-Irish Catholic and my mother's family as Scottish-English Protestant. I'm most uncertain about the genealogy of my father's name, but not very: Apart from the ethnic similarities between Gaelic-speaking Catholic Scots and Gaelic-speaking Catholic Irish, the McDonalds were a bit of a melting pot, absorbing septs and clan fragments left and right. My genealogy beyond the mid-19th century on my father's side is uncertain, and I don't mind.
Firstly, it is complete and under nonsense that Mac and Mc indicate Scottish or Irish origins. They are both EXACTLY the same word, the Mc is actually the abbreviated form of Mac (and sometimes meic) and was usually written M'c (sometimes even M') with the apostrophe indicating that the name has been abbreviated (there are many other characters indicating abbreviation including two dots under the c).
There is however one distinction you can make as far as differentiating between a name being Scottish or Irish. If it is an O' name it is always Irish (those in Scotland are mostly nineteenth century emigrations), but if it is a mac, mc or other variation it can be both Scottish or Irish!
I tend to identify my father's family as Scottish-Irish Catholic and my mother's family as Scottish-English Protestant. I'm most uncertain about the genealogy of my father's name, but not very: Apart from the ethnic similarities between Gaelic-speaking Catholic Scots and Gaelic-speaking Catholic Irish, the McDonalds were a bit of a melting pot, absorbing septs and clan fragments left and right. My genealogy beyond the mid-19th century on my father's side is uncertain, and I don't mind.
