I know that some Scottish surnames have “Mc” in the beginning, and others have “Mac”. What’s the difference, if any? Does this signify some distinction that matters, or are they just two forms of the same?
(The question is actually inspired by seeing a “MacDonald” surname today - which is a bit different from what we see on that fastfood thingy all around).
I don’t think there is any difference except spelling and a marginal difference in pronunciation. They both mean “the son of” X, the same way you get “O’X” in Irish names, and “Xkin” and “Xs” in Welsh names.
There’s no difference - it’s just lazier spelling for the ‘Mc…’ version. It maps to the Welsh ‘Ap’, which is tracitional and you may not have encountered - pronunciation shift in the two different flavours.
I once heard that the ‘Mac’ people were more rare and had more power. Or something.
Heres the reason.
Its basically Mc is an abbreviation of Mac.
15 odd years ago when I wrote software for retail pharmacies I made it so name searches beginning with MC or MAC returned all the MCs and MACs. The pharmacists loved it because some of the customers would spell their name differently on different days of the week.
Yay, thanks everyone!
Scotty, the link is really cool 8)
By the way, if someone’s interested: in Russian it’s even more complicated 
For example, “Ilya the son of Ivan” would historacally sound as “Ilya syn Ivanov”. Later historically that would be “Ilya syn Ivanovich” which, in fact, is doubling the previous option. I guess the reason is that the form “Ivanov” started becoming more and more family name, while “Ivanovich” signified that one particular person.
The word “syn” has been omitted later, so in modern language it would sound like “Ilya Ivanovich Petrov”, for example. In this name “Ilya” is the personal name of this man, “Ivanovich” indicates that his father’s name is “Ivan”, and this is called patronymic. “Petrov” means that the whole family takes its root in someone named “Petr” probably very long ago.
By the way, using the opportunity to ask smart people more about the names :
Why people of English origins usually have two names? Do I understand correctly it has something to do with saints that are meant to help the child who is given their names? Why most of people have two names, but some have three?
Do you mean personal names? ie. ‘Catherine Elisabeth’ rather than ‘Pegg’.
Um, I don’t really know. It does give more options to a person: if they don’t like their first name then they can use the middle one, or a variation, instead.
And some families use it as an opportunity to cram in more relatives’ names onto the kid (my first name is from an aunt, my middle from my mum), which is about honouring the relatives, I guess, and a way of maintaining traditions and that. ‘Elisabeth’ has been in my maternal family for at least six generations (though it used to be ‘Isabella’ or ‘Isobel’ I think).
As to including saints’ names: could be. I don’t think it was the intention in my immediate family, though.
English surnames came about so English peasants could be taxed.
So it’s all about money
Where do you take such beautiful names? I got named honouring both my grandmothers. My Dad saw it simply: the child is a girl, and both grandmothers have same name - what else to think of? My Mom felt too bad that time to take part in it, so I was named without her. So, ended up with twithing every time someone called my name. I hate it. Ancient, beautiful name, ok - but I still hate it. Carnegie was wrong 
Funny, the name my Mom wanted to give me is one of those I always liked 
For my “wtf” about naming Dad said “you have no idea how scary those grandmothers are!”
See? So wise!!!
And, of course, multiple personal names is a way of honouring friends as well as family.
There are a bunch of different customs about first names.
In France, at least for a while, first names had to be selected off a register of allowed ‘French-sounding’ names, to combat a perceived invasion of improper, unFrench names that were becoming popular.
In, I think, one of the Scandanavian countries, there is a tradition that everyone born on a particular day of the year has the same name, so someone told me about visiting wherever it was and suddenly people were saying Happy Birthday to him all day, six months from his actual birthday.
In the Catholic tradition, it is very very common to be named after a saint in at least one of your names, and for girls the saint is very very commonly Mary/Maria/Marie/Marion, to the point where priests have been known to add in Mary to the baby’s name when she was being christened if they felt that the mother hadn’t selected well enough. There are also customs in some places to celebrate the day holy to the saint whom you were named after (for instance, in Austria at the time Maria Von Trapp was growing up - she wrote about it in her autobiography.)
In my family, it is traditional that the first born male has the middle name John. I’m Andrew John (AJ), my uncle is Colin John, my grandfather was Frederick John, my nephew is Vincent John. Kerslake is the family line name.
It’s a way of honouring the past without adding the burden of Xxx [color=red]the 12th[/color] to some poor kid.
I was born the day after my grandfather, so I was given the same initials as him- JMT.
My middle name (Minerva) was my great-grandmother’s first name.
My parents wanted their children to have the heritage of both of their last names, but thought that a double-barrel name would be too much of a mouthful. So they added their names together. Borske + Thompson = Thomborson, in their logic.
HOLYSHIT
My name is similar to the russian example, Sigvertsen basically means Son of Sigvert, who was the progenetor of my family line, My christain name, Carl is from my Great x4 (i think ) grandfather, and my middle name Raymond was my fathers.
Interestingly enough there are two pronounciations of my family name, The Danish one where the “G” is silent which is the way it pronounced right up until the second world war, at which time my paternal grandmother declared it to be “Too German Sounding” and she changed it to the “G” being pronounced. Strangely though She also tried to insist on my first name being spelled with a “K” but my parents vetoed her, My Nana was funny in da head.
I spent my entire life pronouncing my name one way (which was enough of a hassle to get teachers to learn it 
) and then find out that it should have been pronounced another way
I have tried to use the true Danish pronunciation but i gave up after a while.
The difference is that “Mac” is the tradditional spelling of the irish and scottish “son of” where as the “Mc” is the anglasised version, Which differs from the Irish O’(name) which means “Decendant of” and not nesaceraly “Son of”.
Anglasising the names is more previlent in scottland than with the Irish.
Infact the Irish at one point didn’t like it at all which is why there are divides between family where a portion moved to the other isle and changed the name, an example is the older MacAuley’s (whom there are not alot of left) who stayed in their home land when the rest of them buggered off to scottland whom very clearly dont like the McAuley’s.
Also you get the case of two unrelated groups with the same name whom one of anglisied their names due to being mistaken for the other (I cant think of the exact group now but there is another irish/scottish one)
So the Difference between Mac and Mc is nothing from the point of veiw of meaning, they are both from the root of “son of” but there IS a difference between a MacDonald and a McDonald.
Oh and if we realy want to go into it there is also “Mag” (which now days is in rare use as people just drop off their names) but that is EXACTLY the same as “Mac” its only different because the letters the bit after it starts with, an example being MagShamhráin
Does anyone know what the difference is between Stewart & Stuart?
Of what I know they are just 2 variations of the same name, how ever it would be handy to know if there is more to it than that.
[quote=“madwolf_958”]Does anyone know what the difference is between Stewart & Stuart?
Of what I know they are just 2 variations of the same name, how ever it would be handy to know if there is more to it than that.[/quote]The French language doesn’t have a W sound, so when large portions of the Stewart clan decamped to La Belle Francaise after Bonnie Prince Charlie got it in the neck in the 18th C they had to change the spelling so that the locals could pronounce their name.
EDIT: Ah, my Google Foo is strong and my memory for dates is weak. The variation (according to here and here) apparently turned up earlier, when Mary Queen of Scots became Queen of France in the 16th C.
EDIT * 2: As shown in some English vs French variations: garderobe vs wardrobe, guardian vs warden, guerre vs war, Edouard vs Edward
No. That’s loan-words from two different dialects of French, a generation or so apart, or so a Professor of English told me.
Thems sound like fightin words to me, We got ourselves a feud here Yeehaa!!!
May I suggest that, if you do not have anything to add to the discussion, you at least refrain from trying to stir up trouble?