Origin of the Name Malcolm
The ancient history of the name
Malcolm 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 Malcolm
include Malcomb, Malcolmson, McCallum, Callum and Malcolmbson. This name is usually of Scottish origin with their principal homeland being the lands around Lough Awe. Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow granted lands to Reginald MacCallum in the year 1414. Dugald MacCallum of Poltalloch later inherited these family estates in the year 1779 and adopted the name Malcolm with the feudal title 'Malcolm of Poltalloch' assigned to the Chief of the Clan.
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.
The Gaelic form of the name is Ó'Maolcholuim, taken from Saint Columcille. When Gaelic names were anglicized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were often changed to Anglo equivalents that sounded most like their original Gaelic name.
The Malcolm 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 Malcolm descendants.