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Greetings,
Here's the information we have on your name "Donald MacMillan" and your arms, which are blazoned "Sable, a fess enarched and in base a vair-bell argent."
Before reading this letter, we recommend that you read the background information on Scottish names found in the article "Scottish Names 101." It will give you a basis for understanding the details of Scottish naming history, which is quite complicated. The URL for the Web page is
http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scot_names_101.html
Once you've read that, it will be much simpler to work through this.
"Donald Macmillan" is the modern descendant of the Gaelic name "Domhnall mac Mhaolain," meaning "Donald, son of Maolan." We found a number of Scots spellings for these names in period.
For "Donald" we found
(Some of these were originally in Latin sources; I've removed the Latin endings.) "Donald" is one of the spellings that was used in the 14th century, but there are many other possibilities.
The Scots spellings of "mac Mhaolain" dated to around your period that we found include:
We have several suggestions about your arms.
Arms which pun on a name (called "canting arms") are traditional, but we were wondering why you chose to pun on your mundane name. There are Scottish names which incorporate "Bell;" if you're interested in them, we could send them on.
We didn't find any examples of vair-bells in period armory. Although they may have been used, they were rare at best. We suggest changing the vair-bell in your arms to a standard bell, a charge which has been found in arms from your period.
The "fess enarched" that you've used has been registered in the SCA, but it wasn't used as a seperate charge in period. Drawing a bend in an arched way was an artist's trick for making a flat painting appear to be a curved shield; examples of this can be seen in some medieval pictures of arms. But the arching was "artistic license" and it wasn't mentioned in a blazon until after our period. If you wanted to follow period style, you could blazon this as just a "fess" and draw a straight fess on your shield, banner, or clothing, but draw an arched fess in paper depictions of your arms.
We would also suggest that you change the location and/or number of bells on your arms. There are very few medieval coats of arms which use the arrangement "a fess and a thing in base" (at the bottom of the shield). However, there are many similar designs which may produce the effect you're looking for.
Many medieval coats of arms have a fess between two or three things (with one at the bottom and one or two at the top).
Medieval arms also have a fess with one, two, or three things "in chief," at the top of the shield.
If you want to have a single bell in base, you could replace the fess with a chevron, an inverted "V" shape. There are medieval arms which have a chevron and a single thing in base.
Because of the great variety of possibilities, we didn't conflict-check any of our suggested designs. If you send back a couple of designs that interest you, we can check them for conflict. If you any other questions or comments, please feel free to ask.
Arval D'Espas Nord, Effric neyn Kenyeoch vc Ralte, Talan Gwynek, Rouland Carre, Daniel de Lincoln, Margaret Makafee, Hartmann Rogge, Zenobia Naphtali, and Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn all contributed to this letter.
We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to work with you.
In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel