Hi Jim, I think this question is difficult to answer but I will try since nobody else has responded to you. Most of us are lucky if we can trace one or more lines back 300 years and I would say (subject to correction by experts) that people did not take the name of the local chief or landowner in that period. Before that time Highlanders were clansmen who were, or believed themselves to be related to their chiefs. However, they would not be known by their clan names within their own society they would be Jim the son of John i.e. Seamus Mac Ian. (Apologies in advance for poor spelling of Gaelic words.) When they left their own society to come south or go west accross the Atlantic they would probably use a version of their chief's ( their clan's) name. I think a better comparison from your country might be the native Americans. All of the members of Chiricua Apache Tribe were not related to Cochise but they al were proud to call themselves Chiricua,. (Apologies in advance for poor spelling of Native American tribal names. The practice was not extensive in the lowlands but in the Borders there was a similar development with Border clans like the Johnsons, Elliots, Lindsay's etc. but these names were probably taken several centuries earlier. Hope this helps John Shearer -----Original Message----- From: Jim Fergus <jfergus@sirinet.net> To: SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com <SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com> Date: 26 September 1999 02:50 Subject: Unidentified subject! > > Have been advised that tenant farmers, in the old day, did not have, or >use, a personal surname that they used the surname of the laird, or >property owner on whose land they worked. Something like the slaves in the >USA