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Greetings,
Before you read this letter, we recommend that you read the Web page "Scottish Names 101," which gives background information on Scottish names that will make understanding our comments much simpler. The URL is
http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scot_names_101.html
"Seamus" is the the Irish form of the name "James," which is used in both English and Scots. We only found one entry for this name in the 13th century (the entry was the Latin "Jacobus") and a few more in Scots from the 14th century with the spellings "Iames" and "Iamys." (During this period, "I" and "J" were largely interchangable.) We think that the name was pronounced "yay-mes" or "zhay-mes."
When Gaelic-speakers heard this name, they used the spelling that most closely approximated it. In Ireland, the most common spelling was "Seamus." In Scotland, the most common spelling was "Seumas."
Of course, since we have only one example of this name (most likely belonging to a Scots speaker) from the 13th century it's unlikely that it was used by Gaelic speakers at all. "Seumas" would be appropriate for the late 14th century or later, but it most likely wasn't used until then.
We have better news for your byname. "MacGillivray" is the Scots form of the Gaelic name "mac Gille Bhrath," which means, "son of the brat's servant." The period Scots spellings of this name include:
If you wanted to go with a later period, you would have a Gaelic name "Seumas mac Gille Bhrath" and a Scots "Jamys McGillewray" (or one of the other spellings we've found). Since Scottish Gaelic names were written in Scots for court records, we generally recommend that people register the Scots form of their name.
Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn contributed to this letter.
We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.
In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel