>What I was taught is that O' means grandson of and Mc or Mac means son of. So we have O'Brian, who would be the grandson of Brian, as an example.

What, Dad wasn't good enough to mention? (grin)

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>>Had a professor at the University of Houston whose name was Fitzgibbon, and one day we were doing a review for the midterm and he was telling us things like "If I were a betting man, and I am, I would bet big that this topic will be on the test" or, "You might want to pay attention to this"
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>>After about 1/2 hour of this, he suddenly stopped, looked at us and said "don't get the idea that I'm 'nice' or anything. Remember, the first part of my name means "bastard son of" and the last part of my name is an ape"
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>>Yeah.....he had a real odd sense of humor.
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>>But, "Fitz" is generally accepted to mean 'bastard son of', while the "O'" and "Mac" meant 'of the family'
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>>>>>Actually, your name loosely translates to "Bastard son of Gerald"
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>>>Dorris
>>>Yes.. The Fitz's tend to be followed by names like Gerald, Patrick and Hugh rather than the family name, the O's tend to be followed by Family names and the Mac's some of both.