Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:15:15 -0400 From: Laura Cowan Cooper To: [email protected] Subject: [COWAN-L] Cowan Surname Info This was sent to me by a friend that has made the records in Scotland talk to her - it has been really interesting to watch her order the FHC films and make them come alive. So I said to her that I could look at them if we knew where the Cowan's had been before Ireland. So she she looked where she got her start on her research and below is what she found on the Cowan surname. In a friend's book of Scottish surnames here's the info on COWAN: A Lowland surname which is thought to be a transliteration of one of several Celtic names; there are no Cowans in the records before about 1560. Candidates are the Irish patronymic O Comhdhain (pronounced Cowan), and the Gaelic patronymic Mac gille chomghain (usually shortened to MacCowan); the etymologies are uncertain. Cowan's Hospital in Stirling was founded in 1639 by John Cowan, a merchant in the town. With such diverse origins, the surname has no particular location within Scotland. ----------------------------------------------- Hey, Ms. Cooper If those two names are the only candidates, then they are both right. Irish "o" and Scottish "Mac" both mean "son of", & it's not uncommon for words to appear with a "gh" in Irish and a "dh" in Scotland. (I also seem to fuzzily recall a "gillie" to be a scottish title, sort of a castle steward or a thane/carl-like rank.) As for the meaning, well I don't have a clue there. I mean, there is the Welsh root "kom-" that is the source of Cambria & Cymry (Wales and Welsh, respectively), and the "bhain"/"ghain" to this amateur etymologist looks related to a few IndoEuropean roots that mean "from" or "living", but you need to talk to real scholar to see if your terms might mean "From Cambria" or "Cambrian". (I happen to favor this, personally, only because also have "Walsh" name in my family tree.) But, if you found those two spellings around 1560, they likely had a common source not long before -- the spelling of the time would have made wide differences in no time. In fact, maybe they did, and other branches of the tree with different spellings have this info. Hope you keep looking into this. I'm curious what the name actually derives from. Thanks. Concludant Felicitations, Khyran Leander Baldwin '[' --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Sign-up for Video Highlights of 2002 FIFA World Cup