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From: gmb@onions.natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Subject: Re: Linguistic history of Mc & Mac in Scotland?
Message-ID: <1995Apr24.144517.5780@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk>
Originator: gmb@onions.natcorp
Sender: gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Organization: British National Corpus, Oxford University, GB
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 14:45:17 GMT
Lines: 26

In article <3mrqo7$b8j@kaiwan.kaiwan.com> schoner@kaiwan.com (Jeff Schoner) writes:
> In article <199504151215.2788@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU>, thed@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU 
> says...
> >
> >I was wondering if someone might be able to explain the linguistic
> >history of Mc and Mac (as the initial parts of surnames) in Scotland?
> >Ie, what it means (or maybe, rather, what it meant, if anything), 
> >where it came from, if there are any other regions or languages with
> >similar name constructs?
> 
> I beleive the Mac or Mc is a prefix that mean "son".  It's similar to the Russian 
> "vich" suffix.  It has now outlived it's usefullness, but the names are still around.

Another patronymic: in Welsh `ap' means `son (of)' (from `mab' = `boy'
or `child' - if I remember correctly). Some anglicised Welsh surnames
bear traces of this, eg `Pritchard' = `ap Richard', `Price' = `ap
Rhys'. (Richard isn't a Welsh name, of course, but presumably became
sufficiently common in Wales to get a Welsh patronymic attached to
it.) I suppose `Mac' and `mab' could conceivably be related: any
Celtic experts out there?

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{      Glynis.Baguley@oucs.ox.ac.uk     }
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