Origin of the Name Sinclair
The origin of the name
Sinclair was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. The name Sinclair is usually of Scottish origin. William, son of the Conte de Santo Claro in Normandy, was progenitor of the Sinclair Clan. Their original seat was Roslin Castle but they later inherited the Norse Earldom of Orkney. William Sinclair, third Earl of Orkney, was Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in the year 1445, and Ambassador to England. In 1456 he was made Earl of Caithness. Since that time the Chief of Clan Sinclair has always been the Earl of Caithness.
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 Sinclair 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 Sinclair descendants.