Origin of the Name McCartney
The ancient history of the name
McCartney was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name McCartney
include McCartnay and McCartny. The name McCartney is derived from the MacArtain sept of County Down, a Gaelic name which is more often anglicized as McCartan.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
McCartney is also of Scottish origin being derived from MacCartaine families, who were a branch of the clan Mackintosh, prominent in the north-eastern part of Ulster province since the seventeenth century. The MacCartneys of Lissanoure, County Antrim are descended from Captain George MacCartney, Scotland , of these families. McCartney was listed in the 'Petty Census' of 1659 as a principal Irish name in the barony of Belfast. In modern times in Ireland the name is still mostly associated with Ulster Province.
The McCartney 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 McCartney descendants.