The MacDonald Surname
- Meaning
- son of Dòmhnall
- Type
- Patronymic
- Root
- Gaelic Mac Dhòmhnaill
- Chiefly
- The Hebrides and the west Highlands
Mac is Gaelic for ‘son of’, and Dòmhnall is an old personal name usually read as ‘world-ruler’ — domno and val. So the name means, plainly, son of Donald.
It is among the most widespread Scottish surnames, and appears in a long list of spellings: MacDonald, McDonald, Macdonald, and MacDonnell among them. None of the variants is more correct than the others; they are accidents of how a clerk heard a name and what he did with it.
Bestow the name a title it never had
An honorific Lord or Lady certificate in the MacDonald name, hand-finished and sealed, with a square metre of Scottish woodland dedicated alongside it. A novelty, magnificently done — and a good deal more fun than a family tree.
Choose a Package The Peerage Chart