h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My 'sir name' is from totem art from my clan. We do not in custom have a sir name but it was found desireable by those that ruled us.
I am well aware of significance of Native names and how they are made and assigned.
I was surprised to know that European names also have sinificance like a home place or trade etc..

What is the meaning of your sir name? You need not to give the name if you do not wish. Please say what it means and if you know how your family got that name.

I have one European name in my history that I know, there were one or two others but I am not so much in that lineage.This person was a trader that lived among us in the last part of the 1700's. He married into and was adopted by the tribe. Also he fought and was killed on defending his new tribe. In my family he is still remembered. His name was Gorman. I do not know what it's meaning is.

If you know of that meaning I would be very pleased and it would fill my connection with my fathers.

Thank you.
JR

My surname is McKerracher, corrupted from the Scots Gaelic Mac Fearchair... "Son of Farquhar" basically. Clan name itself is Anglicised as "Farquharson".

Gorman is Irish I beleive but other than that I don't know the origins or meaning of the name.

Mr.D
I often forget that others beside Native Americans come from a place where clans and families are a part of the way of life. I am greatly interested and feel it good that in the history of us all there are common things like clans and migrations and such. I wonder sometimes how life would be today if in the America's we had found the working of iron instead of copper (from my area) and stone (from all areas).

Thanks for your reply.
JR

From what my mother found out, my name origins in Spain and means

In Wales we have only had surnames for the last 500 years. Before the fixing of surnames each Welshman carried his genealogy back to nine or ten generations. Where the Scots have Mac the Welsh have ap and the Irish have O' so back then my name would have been Alan ap William ap Arthur etc., etc. instead of Roberts which means the son of Robert.

My surname is a 'son of . . . ' as well, If its a Mac then its Scottish, if its Mc then its Irish. My famly name can be traced back to the isle of Barra where the clan originated from. I can safely say that there are some that share my suname all over the world, but many of them have changed the spelling (i think i have seen every possible spelling of my surname) We have kept the original spellin and are proud to call ourselves MacNeil's

mini

I believe that my ancestors were English peasants who kept cattle and, because they had no other place to spend the nights, slept alongside the cows in the barn or 'booth'.

Irish surnames are about evenly divided between O' meaning "from the family" of and "Mc" or "Mac" meaning "son of". Women would have Iníon Uí (pronounced eeneenee) or just Ní instead of O or Mac.

My surname means son of Amalgad, after some geezer of that name back in the 5th Century or so.

<< I wonder sometimes how life would be today if in the America's we had found the working of iron>>


You might have had an industrial revolution, and been better prepared to defend your land and culture from the Europeans.

My surname is French in origin. Loosely translated it means "speaker"

I think my father's ancestor's were in the crowd that came over with William the Conquerer way back in 1066. When Britain was divied up, it seems like my father's ancestor was given Derbyshire to play with as it's a fairly popular surname up there.

While it goes against the grain to post this w*k* link because, as with a lot of articles I don't know how accurate it is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorman_(surname)

Might give you some leads

"While it goes against the grain to post this w*k* link because, as with a lot of articles I don't know how accurate it is "

And yet you link (incorrectly) to the online encyclopedia!

Try this instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorman_(surname)

Feisor, can you tell me whether our writers are required to keep their entries up to date?

There's the Update Forum <./>RF21</.> for this purpose. Anyone can update entries.

My surname is Miller but I don't really believe that my ancestors ground corn and made bread particularly.
It's of scottish origin as my parents and my family going back to time immemoria are from there.
'Officially' it is a sect of the MacFarlane clan but I'm not sure how accurate that is since I believe a lot of the clan architecture these days (unless your family really were proper highlanders) is a Victorian invention.
So the bottom line is that I don't know. It is an extremely common surname in Scotland though so I find it hard to believe there were that many corn grinders up there in antiquity

Oh and the 'official' story is that some MacFarlanes massacred another clan some time back in the 12th century or something and they were then banned from usingt he name MacFarlane, so they changed it to Miller.

And if you believe that...

Still, it's more interesting than making flour for a living

So, our writers are not responsible for the correctness of their own entries.

"or to Editorial Feedback, where the in-house team or a Curator will update the Entry."

No, they don't update the entry . It is my experience that they make the signalled change/s only. [The fact that the date of the entry is not shown as 'last updated on ....' (or somesuch) can cause misunderstandings - but that's another issue.]

"Update" is used in that sentence in its normal computer meaning - to make a change to something. It doesn't mean that the editors or curators will make sure everything in the entry is up to date and correct. We've no way of doing that as we are not experts on the subject. Only people who know the subject can do that and we rely on volunteers to provide the updating information.

My surname apparently comes from an Anglo-Saxon tribe called Piceringas, thought the spelling has modified since then.

Rereading mine. Sept, not sect. Scottish clans didn't have any weirdo relegious angle that I'm aware of

johnredbear,

As often happens, a very interesting subject is drifting off into other issues.
But I hope folks will try to stay on topic.

Please tell us how you came by the name 'redbear'.
Is there some hidden meaning in it?

Most bears are black or brown or white.
Some grizzlies appear to be a more reddish brown but I get the impression
you are from central areas of the continent well east of most grizzlies.


~jwf~