Origin of the Name McGinn
The ancient history of the name
McGinn 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 McGinn
include McGinne, Ginn, McGing, Ging, McKing and Maginn. This name in Irish is Mag Fhinn and the latter variants are the anglicized form of this. This sept came from Ulster . A sept or clan was a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. In the 1659 Census the name is recorded as MacGinne, being listed as one of the principal Irish names in the barony of Oneeilland, County Armagh. The spelling McGing, Ging and McKing are mostly found in the Counties of Mayo, Leitrim and Galway , these being a branch of the Ulster sept that moved there centuries ago. A famous bearer of the name was William Maginn (1793-1842), who went to London and became one of the foremost personalities in the literary and journalistic field. Edward Maginn (1802-1849) was Bishop of Derry.
The McGinn 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 McGinn descendants.