De-Anglicisation of Names

[OC Richard]

I'm just now reading through this thread for the first time. Very interesting!

It's sort of the reverse of the Anglicisation that occurred in the 19th century when the English began calling Scotland "North Britain" so that the Royal Scots Fusiliers became the Royal North British Fusiliers, and obviously Gaelic names were given an Anglo pedigree, such as saying that Kintail came about because its shape was akin to a tail, etc. (I don't recall anybody saying that Kintyre as akin to a tyre, though!)

Anyhow my own name has one of the oddest paths from Gaelic to English... how on earth could Cook be Gaelic?

A book on Ulster names gives three origins to Ulster Cooks:

1) Cook, from the English occupation
2) MacCooge, from MacDhabhoc or MacUag, a branch of Burke.
3) MacCook, from Kintyre and Arran, Scots Gaelic MacCuagh.

As I understand it, some Arran/Kintyre MacCooks trace their ancestry to MacCuach (literally son of the cup, the family of hereditary cup-bearers, others to MacDhabhoc (son of David).

This reverse Angicisation, that is, giving Gaelic versions of non-Gaelic names, occurs in the index of musicians in Ceol Rince na hEireann by Breandan Breathnach.

And a local joke here is referring to our city Long Beach as Cladach Fada.

[ForresterModern]

Our own Slohairt, John form Keltoi Gaelic Clothing, is the man who usually does the name traces in Gaelic heritage for us on this thread. He is truly phenomenal, and his response time is usually within 24 hours. However I fear there may be a bit of a delay in completing these inquiries during these holidays as he runs a one man business at Keltoi and likely has numerous kilt projects, among other duties, pressing for his time right now (I know one of those projects is my Ancient Caledonia 16 oz Kingussie kilt) so please have patience with him for the next week or two. I have not heard much of him on the forum of late, presumably for the above reasons.

Keep working away, John, our questions can wait, but I am sure there are many who are eagerly awaiting their kilts and goods in time for Christmas (although I am not one expecting that in my case), and I am sure you are laboring relentlessly to try to meet those expectations. Hats/bonnets off to your dedication.

Jeff

[Paul]

My surname is McInally - which is an Anglicanized version of Mac an Fhailghigh which means "son of the poor man". There's a lot of varients such as MacAnally, McNally etc. but mine is the most popular in Scotland and Ireland.