"Mc" .v. "Mac"

[tull456]

Why are some people's names McDonald and some spelt with the "a" like MacDonald???

[Quizmonster]

Both mean 'son of' in Gaelic. It used to be said that 'Mc' tended to be Scottish and 'Mac' Irish, but the plain fact is that they are now, to all intents and purposes and because of intermarriage, identical and not connected with one national group or the other

[Octavius]

In reality, no such differences exist, the Scots/Irish thing is a myth, it's all gaelic.

"Mc" is simply an abbreviation for "Mac." "Mac" is the Gaelic word for "son." Thus MacGregor (Gaelic mac Griogal) means "son of Gregor" and MacLaren (Gaelic mac Labhrainn) means "son of Laurence."

"Mc" began as simply a printer's abbreviation and sometimes even appeared as M' . The only distinguichable prefix between Scots and Irish ius the use of the O' as in O'Reilly, the O' meaning "grandson of" stemming from the word Og meaning young.

Similar prefix systems for '(son)of' can be found in other languages, such as Dutch (Van / Van der) and Italian (Di). Other languages used suffixes, such as Magnusson in Scandinavia (son of Magnus) and Ivan(ov) in Russia.

[Quizmonster]

Surely 'van' in Dutch means 'from' rather than 'son of' in much the same way as 'von' does in German. It surely refers to a geographical place rather than a family relationship. I could well be wrong, but I'd imagine the same applies to 'di' or 'da' in Italian. They all, I presume, usually mean just 'of' rather than 'son of'.

[Octavius]

van is Dutch for 'of' and 'from' hence I put son in brackets, although could equally refer to a gepgraphic location or physical attribute (e.g. De Groot, meaning 'the great'). Also Dutch surnames in Belgium tended to resemble first names and often there was a trailing 's' to signify son. Such an example is Willems (meaning son of Willem) which could be very much like Williamson or McWilliams or MacWilliams which we would recognise in the UK.

von in German is slightly different as it usually indicates someone of noble ancestry rather than 'son of'.

[Quizmonster]

Yes, O, I know 'von' doesn't mean 'son of' in German...that was my point. The German nobility connection is from in the sense that the accompanying name frequently referred to the name of the noble estate the aristocrat came from rather than a family name. Were it used in Britain, in other words, Princess Diana's brother might have been referred to not as "Spencer" but as as "von Althrop".
But what the hey! I'm happy to leave it at that. Cheers