I have recently become aware that a large number of African Americans
have surnames that begin with "Mc". I have recently met four women
whose last names were McGugins, McDaniel, McLaurin and McKinney. These
women were not married, and their fathers were African American. Why
do so many African Americans have last names that begin with "Mc".
Isn't that Scotish or Irish?

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Request for Question Clarification by leapinglizard-ga on 07 Apr 2006 20:08 PDT

In the bad old days, African slaves were given their masters'
surnames. Thus, a black man with a Mac name, such as the Eagles
quarterback Donovan McNabb, may very well be a descendant of an
African slave whose master was a McNabb from Scotland or Ireland. The
other possibility is intermarriage somewhere along the paternal line
between an African woman and a Celtic man. As a matter of fact, most
African-Americans have some European blood.

Is that the explanation you were looking for? If you're satisfied,
I'll get you an interesting quote from National Geographic about the
proportion of European heritage in the African-American gene pool, and
post it as an official answer.

leapinglizard

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Clarification of Question by shay5555-ga on 08 Apr 2006 06:21 PDT

I certainly am aware that slaves were given their master's surnames.
But to me, since there is a disproportionate number of African
Americans with last names beginning with Mc, I was truly wondering if
there was more to it. Please do find me the quote from National
Geographic and post it as an official answer.
Thank you

You may be overly aware of African Americans with Mc surnames,
recalling all the ones you see and discounting the rest.  We all do it
in some area.  I think that there are an inordinate number of small
cars in Germany that are green, for example.  There is an expression
for this:  selective perception.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441357

If you're aware (per your clarification) that many African Americans
still have the last names of their ancestors' slaveholders, I'm not
understanding your surprise that they would have "Mc" last names.

There were many Scotch-Irish immigrants to the South from the 17/18th
centuries onward who would have had "Mc" or "Mac"-prefixed last names.
 Some of them were slaveholders.  There's your answer.

You'll also should explain what you mean by a "disproportionate"
number of black Americans with Mc surnames.  Disproportionate to what?
 I'd say that many more have "standard" English last names than have
Irish or Scottish surnames.  So disproportionate?  I'm not seeing
that.