People Didn't Pay Much Attention To Spelling In The Past, Families Where Everyone Had A Different Last Name Were Not Uncommon, And Here Are Some Examples

"The surnames of a family of six are McEneaney, McAneany, McAneny, McEnaney, and McEnaney"

Maryjane

• Published in Facts
• November 26, 2022

Irish surnames are among Europe’s oldest; Elizabeth I once banned the name O’Neill; a last name is spelled six different ways on one tombstone; and Mc and Mac mean the same thing. Keep reading to discover a dozen facts you might not know about Irish surnames.

Surnames first appeared in Ireland in the tenth century, making them among the first in Europe. By the late 1100s, surnames beginning with Mac, which means "son of," were common in Ireland.

A century after the Normans successfully conquered England in 1066, they turned their attention to Ireland, and over time, many Norman lords became increasingly independent of London, adopting Irish customs such as speaking Irish and adopting Irish names. The government in London became so concerned that a fourteenth-century law mandated that every Englishman in Ireland speak English and have an English name.

Sean or Shane O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was causing so many issues for the English crown in the mid-1500s that Elizabeth I prohibited the name O'Neill, punishable by death and forfeiture of property. Also, when English rule became more intense in the 1600s, the prefixes O and Mac were widely dropped because it became highly difficult to find work if you had an Irish-sounding name.

Surprisingly, reintroducing the prefix was almost never done with some surnames. For example, Murphy was originally spelled Murchadha, but the prefix is rarely used.

People paid little attention to how names were spelled a few hundred years ago. On a tombstone in Ireland, the surnames of a family of six are McEneaney, McAneany, McAneny, McEnaney, and McEneany.

More Info: Reddit, irishtimes

Redditor u/WhileFalseRepeat has shared an interesting piece of information with the TodayILearned subreddit group and here it is

There is a tombstone in Ireland where the surname for a family of six is shown as McEneaney, McAneany, McAneny, McEnaney, McEneany...

Technically, there is no distinction between Mac and Mc. The contraction from Mac to Mc has occurred more frequently in Ireland than in Scotland, with two out of every three Mc surnames deriving from Ireland and two out of every three Mac surnames deriving from Scotland.

Lastly, Irish parents have become much more willing to give their children names that clearly reflect their Irish heritage. There are nine of those names in the 2015 top list: Conor, Sean, Oisin, Cian, Fionn, and Liam for boys; and Aoife, Saoirse, and Caoimhe for girls.

The Reddit post has a thousand upvotes and Redditors dropped their takes as well. We've gathered some of the most upvoted replies for you to read through below.

This Redditor remembers seeing Shakespeare spelled a lot of different ways

The shock after they went to the homestead

You can see it on display in a lot of the official founding documents

All his relatives agreed to not have children

You've got a bunch of names spelled one way

This Redditor has a lot of family members with their last names spelt differently

Pretty close to the other names listed

Doing some polish genealogical research

The first book containing guidelines to the Irish spelling

Many of the names don't even have a proper spelling

Irish names were anglicized by the British

Shakespeare's name is written differently twice

This Redditor is definitely finding the whole thing funny

This OP's last name has at least five known variants

The family bible is the only source for genealogy

This leads to weird stuffs in census records

The correct use of complex grammar was most important

The Twitter profile Irish archeology

Wait what!

This Redditor is trying to research their family in the USA

Well, this was truly a funny story. And we've learned a lot.

I believe there are many facts about Irish culture out there to be discovered. But obviously, these facts about their naming system are really interesting.

What are your thoughts about this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Maryjane