{"id":30475,"date":"2014-02-26T00:05:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T08:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=30475"},"modified":"2014-02-26T03:12:12","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T11:12:12","slug":"mac-mc-surnames-often-contain-second-capital-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/mac-mc-surnames-often-contain-second-capital-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Why “Mac” and “Mc” Surnames Often Contain a Second Capital Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
David asks: Why is the second “C” capitalized in names like “MacCleod”?<\/div>\n

\"scottish\"<\/a>The short story is that \u201cMc\u201d and \u201cMac\u201d are prefixes that mean \u201cson of.\u201d Early inconsistencies in records are what led to having both Mc and Mac prefixes. Mc is just an abbreviation of Mac, and both can actually be abbreviated further to the much less common M\u2019.<\/p>\n

As you might guess from this, the myth that a Mac name denotes Scottish heritage while a Mc name denotes Irish heritage is simply not true. Similarly, the assertion that Mac names are Protestant while Mc names are Catholic doesn\u2019t have a shred of truth to it. They both just mean \u201cson of\u201d and can be used by anyone of either descent or religion.<\/p>\n

Someone with the last name of MacDonald is sort of like someone with the last name of Johnson\u2014likely, each had ancestors with the name of Donald or John. Back in the day, it was common to differentiate people with the same name by also calling them by the names of their fathers, which is how this sort of surname started to become popular.<\/p>\n

You can probably see why Mc and Mac names typically contain a second capital letter. Since proper nouns are capitalized, you would write \u201cson of Donald,\u201d not \u201cson of donald.\u201d In the same way, you would usually write MacDonald rather than Macdonald, but there are obviously exceptions. Surnames have been around so long that sometimes they get changed, and in some families, the second capital letter was gotten rid of.<\/p>\n

In addition, some Mc and Mac names don\u2019t include the name of the father, but the father\u2019s profession. Take someone named John Macmaster. In this case, John\u2019s father was a master of some sort, therefore John is the \u201cson of a master.\u201d Master is not a proper noun and thus does not need to be capitalized.\u00a0 This practice can be seen elsewhere\u2014every Smith, Baker, and Cook likely had someone in that occupation somewhere in their ancestry.<\/p>\n

Other Mc and Mac surnames come from some physical feature of the person, such as Macilbowie, which means \u201cson of the blonde man,” while the more recognizable Mackenzie (ironically enough now a popular first name for girls) means “son of the fair one.” Again, every Brown, White, Green, Bruin, Weiss, LeBlanc, etc. can relate.<\/p>\n

There was also a prefix for \u201cdaughter of\u201d but these mostly fell out of favour years ago. The daughter prefix was Nc, short for the Gaelic \u201cnighean mhic.\u201d Surnames for women like NcDonald were fairly popular in the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries, but after that time there were only a few secluded mentions of them.<\/p>\n

To a lesser extent, \u201cVc\u201d was used to denote \u201cgrandson of,\u201d so that a person would have two surnames. Now you might have John MacDonald Vcmaster, but this tradition was never incredibly popular and is not as prevalent today.<\/p>\n

These surnames have gone through a lot of changes over the years. Aside from Mac being shortened to Mc, in some cases the prefix was dropped altogether. This happened as Macs and Mcs immigrated to other countries and other parts of their names were changed to be more easily pronounced by the people there. For instance, in several cases MacDonald became Donaldson. However, it also occurred within Scotland itself. For instance, the name MacGregor was once banned, and the members of the MacGregor clan had to use different names. Eventually, the name was reinstated, but not everyone went back to using it<\/p>\n

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