ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1397 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1397 ************************************ ************************************************* * * * NOTE: Later research turned up additional * * information relevant to this report. * * See the end of the letter for details. * * * ************************************************* 12 Nov 1998 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked how to pronounce the 16th century forms of that we provided in an earlier letter. This letter is a brief answer to your question. As we noted previously, is a modern English spelling of the Gaelic patronymic . That name is recorded in Scots documents in the 16th century as [1]: 1500 1586 1600 1600 It was pronounced roughly \m@ GRIG-@r\, where the \@\ is a schwa, the last sound in . The \I\ is pronounced somewhere between the vowel sounds of and [2]. As we wrote earlier, would be a fine name for a 16th Lowland (Scots-speaking) persona. Please note that the surname doesn't imply membership in Clan MacGregor. Clans were a feature of Highland, Gaelic culture, and the practice of using surnames to indicate clan membership is a modern development. Your surname would simply have meant that your father's surname was . We hope this brief letter has been useful. Please write us again if you have any questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Talan Gwynek and Effrick neyn Kenneoch. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 12 Nov 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Black, George F., _The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History_, (New York: The New York Public Library, 1986), s.n. MacGregor. [2] A more accurate pronunciation is \m@g-GRIG-@r\, where the two \g\ sounds are really a single, longer sound, without a pause between them. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Correction, 20 Mar 2002, Arval: The 16th century spellings of cited from Black were incorrect.