Teach yourself Gaelic

Mac: son

Pronounced Mack, this is one of the Gaelic words most people encounter every day in Scottish and Irish surnames. The word means the same in both languages. It is often used in figurative ways to mean other things. An echo in Gaelic is mac-talla (mack-tall-lah), literally the son of the hall. More warming is mac-na-braiche (mack na bra-eekh-khu), literally the son of the malt – in other words whisky.

Mac-meanma (mack manam-na) is imagination, literally the son of thinking.

The Gaelic for daughter is nighean, pronounced nee-yann. In Gaelic surnames, the Mac in a name is usually replaced with Nic, because a woman cannot be a person's son.