apostrof

Fordi det er et navn vil jeg tro, og i Skotland og Irland (navnet må være fra et af disse oprindeligt) er der mange navne, der hedder noget i retningen af O'Connor og O'Kane som du nævnet.
I hvert fald er det mit bud.

(det er lidt ligesom Mac-det ene og det andet i skotland og -sen navnene i DK som jeg har forstået det - men man kan jo tage fejl)

#2
Ja, jeg skulle også mene, det er parallelt til det danse "-sen" (Jensen, Hansen) som betyder søn. Det vil sige, at McDonald er altså Donalds søn og O'Connor er Connors søn. Det fortalte min historielærer i hvert fald, men han kan jo tage fejl...

okay tak for svarene. Godt at vide.

Mac: for most purposes, taken to mean "son of", as in Mac Néill (son of Neil). However, literally, the "of" part does not come from the "Mac" prefix but from the patronymic that follows it. E.g., in the case of MacNéill, Mac merely means "son", "Néill" (meaning "of Neil") is the genitive form of Niall ("Neil"). In some cases if the second word begins with a vowel Mac then becomes Mag, as in Mag Eocháin.

O: In Old Irish as ua ("grandson", "descendant"). E.g., the ancestor of the O'Brien clan, Brian Boru (937-1014) was known in his lifetime as Brian mac Cennéide mac Lorcán ("Brian, the son of Cennéide, the son of Lorcán "). Not until the time of his grandsons and great-grandsons was the name O'Brien used as a surname, used to denote descent from an illustrious ancestor. It has for some three hundred years been written as O', but in recent years the apostrophe is often dropped, bringing it into line with early medieval forms.

.....Wikipedia