The
following is how families used to name their siblings and is still
used today by some families today but it’s only a guideline and some
people will follow fashions of the day when naming their children.
Sons
1st son was named after
the father's father
2nd son was named after
the mother's father
3rd son was named after
the father
4th son was named after
the father's eldest brother
5th son was named after
the mother's eldest brother
Daughters
1st daughter was named
after the mother's mother
2nd daughter was named
after the father's mother
3rd daughter was named
after the mother
4th daughter was named
after the mother's eldest sister
5th daughter was named
after the father's eldest sister
If the father remarries
after his first wife dies, the first daughter born to this new
marriage is often named after the deceased wife, and includes her
whole name.
If a child dies young then their name is then
used for the next child of the same sex, thereby keeping alive the
name of the relative who they are ‘named for’ or "Christian name," is
the first name of an individual listed before their surname.
"Middle names", do not seem to have been used in either Ireland or
Scotland until sometime after the 16th century. In both Ireland
and Scotland, men used male given names, and women used female given
names. There was only a small group of given names that could be used
for both men and women. The typical Irish byname is a patronymic,
which would indicate who your father is.
MAC
Irish and Scotch Gaelic
prefix meaning "son of." Also m' and "mic," giving rise to the
racial slur for Irish men as "micks," "mics," or "micky's."
Scottish and Irish patronymic surnames frequently have the prefix Mac or Mc.
When these surnames were
originally developed, they were formed by adding the Gaelic word mac,
which means son of, to the name of the original bearer's father. For
example, the surname MacDonnell literally means son of Donnell.
In later times, these
prefixes were also added to the occupation or nickname of the bearer's
father. For example, MacWard means son of the bard and MacDowell means
son of the black stranger. Numerous variations of this prefix
emerged, for a number of reasons. It was rendered Mag before
vowels and aspirated consonants.
Historical records
concerning Irish and Scottish names reveal that the common prefix Mc and
the less common prefixes M' and Mcc developed as abbreviations of the
original Gaelic prefix Mac. Thus, the popular beliefs that Mc is a
distinctively Irish prefix while Mac is exclusively Scottish, and that
one prefix is used by Catholic families while the other one is
specifically Protestant are erroneous.
In actuality, the same
person often had his surname recorded using both Mac and Mc on separate
occasions.
NI
In the Irish patronymic naming system,
indicates that the individual is the daughter of the man whose surname
follows.
The form is:
<single given name>
inghean uí <eponymous clan ancestor (in genitive case)>,
which means:
<given name> daughter of a
male descendant of <eponymous clan ancestor>.
For example:
Dearbhorgaill inghean uí Conchobhair' which means: Dearbhorgaill
daughter of a male descendant of Conchobhar (or, fully Anglicized,
Dervorgilla daughter of a male descendant of Connor). Later the word
inghean was corrupted to nighean, which was further shortened to ni.
Ó
Irish and Scotch Gaelic
prefix to a patronymic name literally meaning "of the generations of,"
or the more commonly understood term "grandson."
Ua, Uí
Family, clan. E.g. Uí
Néill
SURNAME
The last, or "family
name" of the individual. All Gaelic surnames are patronymic," it is the
father, and not the mother, whose given name was used to form this type
of byname. Gaelic bynames formed from the mother's name (metronymics)
are vanishingly rare to nonexistent in both Scotland and Ireland.
In Ireland, clan affiliations were often used to form bynames.
Simple patronymic bynames
and clan affiliation bynames are the two most common types of Gaelic
byname found in medieval and early modern Ireland.
Men: The standard form of Irish clan affiliation by names for men is:
<single given name> ó
<eponymous clan ancestor (in genitive case)>, the ó being a contraction/corruption of uá, which gives us the meaning:
<given name> male
descendant of <eponymous clan ancestor> For example: Donnchadh ó
Conchobhair, which means Donnchadh male descendant of Conchobhar (or,
fully Anglicized, Duncan male descendant of Connor).
Women:
Women patronymics are formed the same way, so the standard way to form
Irish clan affiliation bynames for women is:
<single given name>
inghean uí <eponymous clan ancestor (in genitive case)>,
which means:
<given name> daughter of
a male descendant of <eponymous clan ancestor>
For example:
Dearbhorgaill inghean uí Conchobhair' which means: Dearbhorgaill
daughter of a male descendant of Conchobhar (or, fully Anglicized,
Dervorgilla daughter of a male descendant of Connor). Later the
word inghean was corrupted to nighean, which was further shortened to ni.
Note the the nominative
form of Conchobhar is Conchobar.
The h in Chochobhar is
the result of a feature of Gaelic called "aspiration," their way of
recognizing the living or inherent "spiritual" aspect of names.
Most consonants are aspirated after ingen nighean and ni, but in the
period when ingen was used, this aspiration usually wasn't reflected in
the spelling. Also note that the parental name is often modified
even further. For example, if you are Cormacc son of Aed, the
Irish would be Cormacc mac Aeda. This is because Gaelic has a
distinct genitive or possessive case that looks (and often sounds)
different from the nominative case.
For instance, Aeda means
"of Aed" or "Aed's."
A subgroup of patronymic
style names is formed from the father's occupation, status or nickname
instead of his given name.
Ó Gobhann means "(male)
descendant of (the) smith.
Mac an Bhaird means
"son of the bard."
Mac an Ghoill means
"son of the foreigner."
Mac an tSionnaigh means
"son of the fox."
(These are modern
spellings; in Middle Irish these might have been Ua Goband, Mac in
Baird, Mac in Gaill and Mac int Shinnaig.)
There are other forms of
Irish bynames, including epithets, occupational name and locatives. An
epithet is a descriptive phrase added after the given name. These tended
to be extremely simple and concrete. A colour might be added to describe
a person's hair or complexion.
Maine with the red hair
might be called Maine Ruad.
Little Lugaid might be
called Lugaid Beag.
Cathan, who is clever
like a fox, might be called Cathan Sinnach.
Locative names state
that someone is from a particular place.
In Mulind, in modern
Irish an Mhuilinn means "of the mill" and indicates that the person
lived at or near a mill.
Muimnech, now spelled
Muimhneach is a byname meaning "Munsterman, the man from Munster."
(From Choosing an
Irish Name, by Dame Cateline de la Mor la souriete, aka Kristine
Elliott, and © 1997.)