[ANSTHRLD] Iain MacWhelan

[Kathleen O'Brien]

>>Iain MacWhelan would be a gaelic version of John son of Wolf.
>
>Well, not exactly.  If Iain MacWhelan is anything, it
>is a 19th and 20th century Irish name.

And "MacWhelan" can't be Gaelic since Gaelic does not have the letter W.
It may be Scots or Anglicized Irish.

Some clarification of Scots versus Scottish Gaelic is given in:
  http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/scotnames101-3rded.shtml

Here are bits from that article that are relevant to the 16th C:

"Many people are aware of a concept of Scotland being culturally divided
into Highlands and Lowlands, with Highlanders speaking Gaelic (in the
Middle Ages, the same language as spoken in Ireland) and Lowlanders
speaking Scots (a cousin language of English [1])."
...
"Even in the 16th century, with her modern borders nearly set, there were
still at least three languages spoken in Scotland; in addition to Scots,
spoken primarily in the Lowlands, and Gaelic, spoken primarily in the
Highlands[2] and Western Isles, Norn (a flavor of Norse) as well as Scots
was spoken in the Northern Isles. "


>If he wants 1200-1600 highland Scotland Gaelic then
>Eoin mac Faolán or Eoin mac Sithig.

And it is important to note that the construction used in these names means
that his father's given name happened to mean "wolf".  That Dad's name
meant wolf was likely was not viewed as literal at that time any more than
naming someone "Heather" today means that she's particularly heathery.


>The last one is
>would be closer to 1200.  Also, Eoin mac tire is son of the soil (wolf)
>after one of the names for the wolf
>(mac tire).

Mac Tire is a single name, like Mac Bethad (I think that one is entry in O/
Corra/in & Maguire).

As such, it would be <Eoin mac Mic Tire> in your example above.  (I may
have some small spelling mistakes, missing accents, etc. in this.  We'd
need to check it.)


>Black, page 567, header MacTyre gives
>Paul MacTyre from 1360.

This is an Anglicized form and the Gaelic particle "mac" was likely dropped
in the Anglicized form.

A parallel would be in Black (p. 228 sn. Duncan) which lists "John Dunkan"
in 1367.  In this Anglicized form, the "mac" that exists in the Gaelic form
of the name does not appear in the Anglicized form.

Mari