Re: Asian migration to Scandinavia

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@... > wrote:
>
> At 11:02:58 AM on Sunday, September 14, 2008, Andrew
> Jarrette wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > P.S. to Rick: what I do know about the McMillans (and I
> > don't know why some spell it MacMillan, and whether they
> > are related (cf. Harold MacMillan, former PM of Great
> > Britain)
>
> <MacMillan>, <Macmillan>, <McMillan>, <M'Millan>, etc. are
> all the same name and can all appear in a single family.
>
> > is that their name is from <mac maolain> which means "son
> > of the priest".
>
> Not quite: English <Macmillan> actually represents two Scots
> Gaelic names, <mac Mhaolain> and <mac Ghille Mhaoil>. The
> first is 'son of Maolan'; <Maolan> corresponds to Irish
> <Maolán> and is a diminutive of <Maol> 'bald, tonsured', Old
> Irish <Máel> 'crop-headed, shorn' (and by extension 'bald'),
> and the whole is 'son of the bald or tonsured one'.
>
> The second is 'son of Gille Maol'; <Gille Maol> corresponds
> to Irish <Giolla Maol> 'bald or tonsured lad' (OIr <gilla
> máel>), making the whole 'son of the bald or tonsured lad'.
> (Another interpretation is grammatically possible but I
> think much less likely.)

I believe the source I got that information from mentioned that
priests were the tonsured ones in Old Irish society.

>
> > Campbell so strongly suggests <campobellum> , as though it
> > were a Roman name meaning "battlefield" , but perhaps it's
> > more something like "cambail" or another Irish word of
> > some sort?
>
> Sc. Gael. <camb(h)eul> 'wry-mouth, crooked mouth', from
> <cam> 'crooked, awry, distorted, bent' and <beul> 'mouth'.
>

Well, I'd much rather take "battlefield" over "crooked mouth" for the
meaning of name of my ancestors, untrue though it may be.

AJ

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