I was once married to a McMinn (indeed I held that name myself for 10 years). Supposedly, McMinnis is a variant of it and both actually came from Menzies originally. Ancestors in Ayrshire. Could all be a story though.


>>>Alex
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>>>How come you don't know how to spell your own name?
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>>Sorry for not answering, but,... well... I had the whole reply and while doing a last edition I alt-left arrowed and lost it all.
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>>Long story short, my family name suffered some sort of spanish-o-lysation. You see, I was born in Mexico as was my father and grandfather. We don't know when the name got to Mexico (we haven't been able to find any records in the small town where my granddad was from) so we have to assume that the name is either spelled correctly or that a judge changed it while recording the name of an ancestor (highly likely, as judges had final saying on names at one time). We have two theories for when the name came to Mexico; either from an Irish soldier that defected from the US in the US-Mexico war or from Pirates that settled in the SE of Mexico. As my grandfather is from the SE of Mexico we like the second theory better. P) (yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me!)
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>>An interesting trivial fact is that the Mac prefix means 'son of' very much like the suffix 'ez' at the end in Spanish names (Hernandez, Lopez, etc.). Do you know of any prefix / suffixes that mean the same in other languages?
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>Hi Alex (or is it Alejandro?)
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>I was only being tongue-in-cheek when I asked the question, as I know there are many variant spellings. It IS quite novel for me to see other McDonnells, of any spelling, the same spelling as mine - very rare (despite the aircraft company).
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>Interesting story about how your name came about. I like the second one better too. There are examples of seafaring in my family. My paternal grandfather was in the merchant marine during WW II (but sadly was run over by a street car - tram -at Liverpool docks, during the war, and so I never met him. I was in the MM myself for the experience, after college.
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>Now interestingly, my grandfather's dyslexic/nearly illiterate grandfather was an Irish pirate, who was last seen when he set off to mauraud the Mexican coast, with the intention of taking an hispanic bride.
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>Just kidding!
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>But your theory is not so far-fetched. Scotland has quite a large Italian-ethnic population, many with names like Macari (which sounds like a Scottish clan). I believe there may even be descendants of the Spanish Armada that came to grief there.
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>I was well aware of the "son of" meaning of "Mac" and "Mc". I believe there are many in other languages, like "Von" in German names, "Van" in Dutch, the "itch" or "off" sound in so many eastern European and Russian names (e.g. Ivanovich - not sure of the spelling, Romanov). Not sure about "ski" either. I think the "sov" as in "Borislav Borrisov" may mean similar too.
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>Perhaps others will chip in with "Son of" derivatives
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>Cheers, Cuz
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>Terry