Origin of the Name McCarter
The origin of the name
McCarter was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. Carter and McCarter are occupational names meaning 'the cart driver', from a person who made their living driving a cart. Variants include Cartman, Carttar, McArthur and McArter. This name is of Anglo-Norman descent spreading to Ireland , Scotland and Wales in early times and is found in many mediaeval manuscripts in these countries. Examples of such are a Julianna Catere, County Cambridgeshire, and a Jocius Caretarius, County Oxfordshire of County Norfolk, England , who were recorded in the 'Hundred Rolls' in the year 1273. A Hob Carter was a tenant on the lands of the Abbey of Kelso, Scotland , in the year 1567. Richard Carter and Cecily Eilmar were married in Saint James Clerkenwell in the year 1574.
In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland , especially during the seventeenth century. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland ' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland . While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.
This name is also on record from the fourteenth century in Ireland as 'Le Carter'.
The McCarter coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all McCarter descendants.