Origin of the Name McCutcheon
The
McCutcheon family history 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 McCutcheon
include McHutcheon, McHutchin and McHutchon. The McCutcheons are a branch of the Scottish clan MacDonald of Sleat.
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.
The name means 'Son of Hutcheon', and is found in early records in the person of Adam MacHutchoun, who was recorded in Murthlac in the year 1550. A branch of the family moved to Ireland where the name appears in the Donegal Hearth Money Rolls in the year 1663. The name is MacUistin in Gaelic and has a number of other Irish variants including MacQuestion, MacWhiston, Houston and even Kitchen. In modern times these names are mostly found in Ulster Province.
The McCutcheon 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 McCutcheon descendants.