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?
[quote=“theamazingcatherine”]No. That’s loan-words from two different dialects of French, a generation or so apart, or so a Professor of English told me.[/quote]But my point that the French version currently uses a G or a U sound where the English version currently uses a W sound is still valid.
No. That’s loan-words from two different dialects of French, a generation or so apart, or so a Professor of English told me.[/quote]
Ok, so Stewart changed to Stuart to make it easier for Frenchmen to pronounce 
, and then back.
However, does it mean that the situation in royal family affected all the other Stewarts? I mean, this is a pretty common surname, isn’t it?
And if it’s two French dialects, then how would the original Scottish be?
By the way, cool links, thanks, Steph 
True.
The trouble with names and spellings in English is that, until very recently pronunciation and spelling varied extroadinarily. I’m not talking differences between dialects, I’m talking about two guys in the same town spelling common words to their own particular taste.
There’s an awful lot of noise to the signal of ‘what different spellings indicate.’ That’s not to say they can’t mean something, but be very, very careful about drawing conclusions, 'kay?
There’s a difference, spelling-wise, of two letters. In pronunciation, assuming everybody pronounces those vowel combinations the way I do (highly unlikely, from what I know of phonetics versus alphabets), it’s the difference between a vowel and a dipthong [‘oo’ ‘ew’. It’s small.
If we wanted to investigate it further, we might take a look at other examples of loan-words into French, especially the vowels. It’s an awful lot of work, though.)
n u fink dat thngs r ne difrent now??
Don’t make me break out the custom emoticons!
I find it highly ironic that the average level of spelling on the internet is… variable, when the potential use of search engines is limited by accuracy. V. strange.
I don’t think it’s limited to “the internet” - it’s actually a fairly massive and sudden change in common written word. And I don’t think “effectiveness of search engines” is the thing to worry about, I’m more worried about the scope of meaning in communications and ability to take anything seriously. eg.
"i jst ran ova ur child n my 
"
Search engines like google sometimes give alternative options.
But the whole thing about those changes is more about to whom you are speaking. I remember several years ago I’ve read an article about a girl who wrote her school essay totally in mobile messages language. The teacher didn’t accept the essay, and the article was actually blaming the teacher for being so un-progressive and not understanding that this is a whole new language.
My own opinion is the girl just wanted to mock the teacher. Because otherwise I’ll have to think she completely doesn’t understand the rules of social behavior outside of her narrow peers group.
Not just that, google aslo recognises acronyms and abbreviations (e.g. IRD, UK and so on), it also includes plurals of words, in all google has become verry smart in the how it can search. However it is still left to the user to use certian terms to narrow the field of results down.
As for Stewart/Stuart i do know that the first Stuart on the throne was spelt the U A way and after that point it was E W.
Are you sure? Wikipedia tells me that it was actually Stewart until Mary Queen of Scots went to France and then changed the spelling so the French could pronounce it. All subsequent Stuart monarchs (James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II) kept it as Stuart.
(I did assume you mean the English throne. If you meant another, disregard my comment)
oh well ty for that, its been a while since i read the lineage of mary queen of scot’s (well the family tree at the back of the book)