Blair Collection > Surnames & place-names of the Isle of Man

Jnitto&ucfitm.
of which is so striking to any visitor to the Island.
Where the syllable Mac was prefixed to personal names
beginning with Giolla or Giiilley ('servant of), the
initial syllables have been frequently contracted into
Myhy, the surname Mac Gilley Chreest or Mac
Gilchrist, for instance, becoming Mylechreest or
Mylchreest. Early in the sixteenth century the
prefix Mac was almost universal ; a hundred years
later it had almost disappeared. The old distich
Per Mac atque O, tu veros cognoscis Hibernos,
His duobus demptis, nullus Hibernus adest.'
I.e.,
' By Mac and O
You'll always know
True Irishmen, they say ;
But if they lack
Both (J and Mac
No Irishman are they.'
never took root in the Isle of Man, but Mac has left
numerous traces of its existence.
Women had the curious prefix ine, a shortened form
of inney (' daughter ')* before their names. Thus, in
1511, we find Donald Mac Cowley and Kathrin Ine
Cowley. After the middle of the seventeenth century
ine is not found, though Inney survived as a Christian
name till about a century later.
In Europe generally surnames may be divided, with
regard to their derivation, into four classes : (i) Those
derived from the personal name of an ancestor ; (2)
Those derived from trades and occupations ; (3) Those
* Cf. Irish }ii, a contrnction o'i i?isi;hin.