The wide variety of spellings of the surname MacDonald are clearly illustrated by the 11 pages of signatures in The Clan Donald Vol. III, 1904 by A & A MacDonald. These signatures of prominent members of the Clan demonstrate that the spelling of the name, including Mc or Mac, was an individual preference and didn’t necessarily indicate with which branch of Clan Donald they were associated. Note the variety of spellings of the Gaelic prefix Mac meaning “son of” even including the occasional “Mack”! The significance of the raising of the “c” in the spelling Mc is visible in the Gaelic 1467 manuscript available from the National Archives of Scotland. These signatures show that the Mc that was used by Donald of Harlaw in 1408 was still quite common in 1904. The raised “c” actually carries over the way our surname was originally written in Gaelic.
Significant evidence that the spelling Mc was the common abbreviation of Mac is found in these signatures with the elevation of the “c”. Note the abbreviated given names in the signatures below such as Alexr (with an added raised “r”) for Alexander and Margtt (with an added raised “tt”) for Margarette. These elevated letters each connote an abbreviation of the name. The vast majority of these signatures include a capitol “D” but some sign with a lower case “d” beginning “donald”.
The authors of The Clan Donald (who spelled their name “Macdonald”) included 11 pages of signatures of prominent members of Clan Donald. Despite the multiple signatures, written in their own hand with various spellings, the authors of “The Clan Donald” chose to type each & every name “Macdonald” at the bottom of each page!
