Maclean or MacLean

**T-Bone** · 21st November 10, 07:51 AM

Does anyone have an answer as to why the name Maclean is sometimes spelled with a lower case l and sometimes spelled with an upper case L? All other clan "Mac" names use upper case letters after the Mac.
Just curious.

**ForresterModern** · 21st November 10, 08:07 AM

I too am curious about this because of a line in the movie "A River Runs Through It", where the father, a clearly Scottish ancestry Presbyterian (I believe) minister, makes the comment about his youngest son, Paul, the journalist/reporter and family rebel, having changed the spelling of his last name in his byline from Maclean to MacLean, stating with obvious disdain, "He's even changed the spelling of his name in the paper to MacLean with a capital L. Now everyone will think we are lowland scots." The disdain was not just for the spelling change, but more so for the distaste of being "mistaken" for a lowland scot because of it.

**Riverkilt** · 21st November 10, 08:27 AM

I am a Macdonald. What my grandfather Murdoch taught me was that Macdonald was for Island Scot branches of the clan - ours from Skye - and MacDonald was for Highland branches of the clan.

My family has used Macdonald for ten generations that I can document.

Perhaps the Maclean's are similar.

Here's the link to a now inactive Facebook group about Macdonald with a little d. Implies for the Macdonalds the connecton is to Lord of the Isles.

http://www.facebook.com/Riverkilt#!/...gid=2414505616

Hope that's kinda helpful. Know I get REAL TIRED of correcting folks politely as I can.

**macwilkin** · 21st November 10, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by ForresterModern

I too am curious about this because of a line in the movie "A River Runs Through It", where the father, a clearly Scottish ancestry Presbyterian (I believe) minister, makes the comment about his youngest son, Paul, the journalist/reporter and family rebel, having changed the spelling of his last name in his byline from Maclean to MacLean, stating with obvious disdain, "He's even changed the spelling of his name in the paper to MacLean with a capital L. Now everyone will think we are lowland scots." The disdain was not just for the spelling change, but more so for the distaste of being "mistaken" for a lowland scot because of it.

One of the best parts in the movie, INMHO. In the book, the Rev. Maclean clarifies it even further by stating that everyone will think they're Lowlanders and not Islanders.

T.

**ThistleDown** · 21st November 10, 09:35 AM

Perhaps Sandy will come on with an answer specific to the Macleans, but in the case of most others it is/was often how it was written by someone other than the holder of the name. So Macdonald/MacDonald/McDonald/M.Donald referring to the same individual in four different documents. For some reason several generations ago a chief of the Macintoshes himself wrote his name as MacKintosh and it has remained that for the chiefly line ever since.

So it's not accurate, T-Bone, to say that all other "Mac" clan names use an upper case letter following: Macgregor is often found as MacGregor, Macgillivray (and McGillivray) more often than MacGillivray, Mackenzie more often than MacKenzie, Maclachlan more often than MacLachlan, for example.

In Scotland, that is. I understand that Ellis Island contributed a lot to name-change in the US.

**Chas** · 21st November 10, 09:48 AM

Spelling has always been an adventure rather than a science. It was not till 1910 that there was a legal requirement for there to a dictionary in every school in the UK.

There are many reasons why a name changes - mis-pronouncement, mis-hearing, mis-recording (accidental or deliberate), mis-reading documents, fashion, politics.

Many Smiths upgraded to Smyth or Smythe

It has always been my belief that Mac, Mc and M' were all the same thing. And that capitals and smalls were all the same. Quite often it is just personal preference.

Regards

Chas

**celt72** · 21st November 10, 10:40 AM

It is the same with Mackay. The Clan officialy spells it with a lower case k. My understanding is that it depends on how it is spelled in Gaelic. Since the name is Clan Aoidh in Gaelic, when it is translated into English it becomes a lower case k since the name in Gaelic begins with an A and not K. I hope this makes since...

**Azrobert** · 21st November 10, 11:19 AM

I think the variations have more to do with lack of formal education rather than intentional changes.
My name is McKenzie, and I was told that all "Mac"s coming through Ellis Island had the "a" dropped from Mac in order to save on ink by the Immigration officials having to write each person's name around a dozen times.
Which sounds good until you know that my ancestors emigrated to America in the 1600s. I have traced by lineage and am pretty sure that MacKenzie was changed to McKenzie as early as the 1700s.
There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to the capitalization.
Personally, when I sign my name I make the K the largest letter.

**ForresterModern** · 21st November 10, 11:30 AM

It wasn't just in America that this all occurred either. I believe as stated above it wassimply the general level of education that was the standard for several hundred years, that those who could read and write did so often phonetically, and when you mix in accents from different portions of each country, both in the speaker and the listener, it is understandable that there are so many variations in any given surname.

My own is believed to have originated in Flanders as an occupational addendum (Baldwin "the Forrester") forrester which in latin was Forrestarius, in Flemish Forrestiere. When they settled in the Lowlands of Scotland and England they were anglicized to Forrester, then subsequently over a couple hundred years morphed to Forester and Forster and then to Foster, oftentimes known by several variations in the same generation and same single family (our first US landowning relative was variously listed as Forester, Forster, and Foster in several contemporary documents of the time).

**Riverkilt** · 21st November 10, 11:47 AM

My sense is that many families, like my family, are protective of the spelling of the family name.

My family name has survived in tact for ten generations through emmigration to Canada then to the United States. The family name survives with distant cousins back in Skye.

The correct spelling of the name survives because parents taught their children the correct spelling and the children valued the correct name for the family. Just as in the River Runs Through It example of the Macleans.

Just because some official spells a family name wrong doesn't mean the family is going to adopt that incorrect spelling. For ten generations of Macdonalds we have corrected errors and continued to spell our family name the way our ancestors have.