Origin of the Name McEldowney
The origin of the name
McEldowney 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 McEldowney
include Downey, MacGildowney and Muldowney. The Irish name MacEldowney is derived from the native Gaelic Mac Giolla Domhnaigh sept that was located in County Derry in Ulster Province. This sept name literally translates as 'son of the devotee of church'.
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.
This name was also anglicized as Downey which is a name more usually adapted from the Gaelic Mac Dunadhaigh and O'Dunadhaigh septs of Ulster Province and County Galway respectively. In modern times McEldowney is still most often found in the Northern Counties.
The McEldowney 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 McEldowney descendants.