Lauren, WHEW! That was quite a lesson in Irish names! Since I'm completely enchanted with anything Irish (after having watched four seasons of Balleykissangel on PBS, enjoyed all the concerts by the Irish Tenors and at the moment reading "The Princes of Ireland" by Edward Rutherfurd -- to be followed by "The Rebels of Ireland" by the same author) your email was quite interesting reading and my head is spinning a bit from trying to take it all in. :-) I don't think I can ever completely understand it all, but thanks for taking the time to send me the information. I was mainly wondering about the apostrophe because I wanted to type the surnames correctly into the Surname window, and wasn't certain how the search engine worked-- if it picked up the name with the apostrophe or without. I was also advised to spell it the way it was spelled in the body of the message so as to remove all doubt. Thanks again! Marilyn ---------------original message------------- In a message dated 9/8/2006 10:41:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, listsmonster@gmail.com writes: Marilyn --- A little known fact is that the O is actually a separate word in Celtic names. "While the Mac, both in Highland and Irish names, has often become incorporated, the O has generally resisted this. The name Ogilvie is an exception, but even this was formerly written O'Gilvie, and is sometimes found thus written yet. It is said also to be the solitary instance of a Highland O, but, perhaps, if we looked closely, we should find others. In at least one northern Irish name the O has become incorporated into the body of the surname, and changed into an A, viz., 'O'Gnimh,' which was once anglicised 'O'Gneeve,' but now mostly 'Agnew.' In the North the O is pronounced very short and obscure, and this makes the corruption or suppression all the easier. What the O was--what it really meant--used to exercise many foreigners and even some Irishmen greatly, and even yet, though its meaning in Irish is thoroughly known, men are not agreed as to what its true Aryan analogues are. But it is no abbreviation--no preposition--it is like Mac, a full substantive. It is only the modern form of a word which was formerly spelt ua (still so spelt in its literal sense) signifying at first a grandson, and then any remote descendant, as O'Briain (O'Brien), descendant of Brian. In old Irish the word was aue, which would represent a prehistoric Irish *auas or *avas. Now if *auas had lost an initial p--as is the case with many of our Irish words that now begin with a vowel or a liquid--as Ir. athair (father) for *p-athair, iasc (fish) for *p-iasc, lan (full) for *p-lán, etc., we could infer an original *p-auas which might be compared with the Latin puer, poir, and the Greek pais (a boy, a son). " Whilst we should not over meddle with a poster's post, I can see how one would be inclined to "restore" the apostrophe. And based upon the snipped above from an essay regarding Celtic names, very few actually have a combined form when the O rather than the Mac is used. Consider that the poster *should* know how their family names are spelled. Cheers, Lauren