Scots-Irish

**slohairt** · 8th June 07, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Arlen

As far as the whole Mc and Mac thing, it is similar to the idea that Lowlanders capitalise and highlanders don't. (IE MacDonald vs Macdonald.)
They are both just anglocized ways of spelling Gaelic names. Whether they be Scots, Irish, Manx, Breton... whatever
Yes, that's right, you get Manx and Breton names which begin with Mc or Mac.
It doesn't mean Scots or Irish, it just means son of somebody who probably a while back spoke Gaelic.
Similarly, Nic means daughter of. So the name Nicolson/Nicholson etc is Daughter of Olsen. A mix of Viking and Gaelic.
And similar to that you will get names that are Scots or Irish but have a Norman or German root.

I will admit, the Mc or Mac prefix to a name does tend to be more common in Scottish names, but it isn't solely Scottish or Irish.

Dia Dhuit!

As far as capitalisation, it's true that many Lowlanders (of Highland descent) did not capitalise the stem of their patronymic, while Highlanders often did. Conversely, there are anglicised names which almost never have a capitalised root.

Manx uses a very different orthography than the other two languages. It is loosely based on Welsh/English phonetic rendering. Mac is only represented in Manx names by a residual "c" at the beginning.

Breton, is of course, a Celtic language, but it's particular patronymic is "Ab" which corresponds to the Welsh "Ap." Both mean "son of" like the Gaelic "mac"
However, the language is distantly related to Gaelic, as it belongs to the Brythonic branch.

You're right, "Nic" does mean "daughter of." However, the name Nic(h)olson is Mac Neacail meaning "son of Nicholas." Daughter of would be Nic Neacail.

So, yes, Mac is exclusively Gaelic (meaning Irish, Scottish, and Manx).

Sorry to ramble

Just got to dust off studies!