Irish Translation Forum

Not to keep beating a dead thread, but just to answer the McKinney question for the poster before redwolf, according to MacLysaght's Surnames of Ireland, the surname McKinney is Mac Coinnigh in its Irish form, and is common in Tyrone and Derry, although many McKinneys in Ulster are apparently descendants of Scottish settlers, who were from the Clan MacKinnon (Mac Fhionghain in Scottish Gàidhlig), and apparently some Scottish Mackenzies also became McKinneys in Ulster (Mackenzie is MacCoinnich in Scottish Gàidhlig).

Just to make things a bit more complicated, MacLysaght also says that some McKinneys are originally MacKennas (MacKenna being Mac Cionaoith in Irish

Diat duit, i ts very interesting about the name mac where it originates so its definately irish. My mothers maiden name is macnamara and i always thought we had irish connections with that name . The thing is it goes back to 1848 when my macs came to birmingham my grt grt grandmother was scottish decent name of mackie and her husband was macnamara so they were called the macs . id always thought i was a real english person but i was very happy finding i had irish ancestry when searching my family tree. My husband is irish but has been in england since. he was two so doesnt know any irish. i want to keep a bit of our ancestry so learning a bit of irish will be one way of doing this. So mac means son of so what was the other part of the name be it namara. is that an irish name or is that an english translation. i mean whats the irish name for macnamara it wouldnt have spell like that in irish would it.

Mc Namara Mac Conmara Means son of the sea hound originating from an ancestor called Cú mara. Very common in county Clare where they were a dominant clan one time.

Like Roisin, My family landed in Birmingham a little in 1959 from Dublin.

Why is Mc Namara irish form sometimes represented with a capital M as in
Mc naMara? and is space between the Mc & Namara typical? I only ask this as it has caused me no end of issues when searching for genealogical data on predominatly irish databases

Marc

Niamh Ni Laughlin wrote:Ni also means daughter of but is not used commonly anymore

Niamh

Hi Niamh,

"Ní" is used commonly in the Republic. Ní Mhurchú, Ní Líatháin, Ní Shúilleabháin, Ní Laoi, Ní Bhrádaigh, Ní Luinneacháin, Ní Mhórdha, Ní Chatháin...srl.

would love to find out how callum translates into gaelic and also molly into gaelic, please!!!

will no-one rid us of this troublesome post?

As a surname Mac Callum is a variant of MacColum and is mostly Scottish. Don't know how this would be in Scots-Gaeilgr. Molly is a diminutive of Mary, which is Máire in Irish, pronounced Maura.