MCCRORY
Recorded variant spellings include Mc Crory, Mccrory
McCrory is a surname of Gaelic origin found primarily in the British Isles, particularly in Ireland and Scotland. It derives from the Old Irish Mac Ruaidhri, meaning “son of Ruaidhri,” where Ruaidhri is a personal name constructed from ruadh “red” and rí “king.” The composite thus conveys the sense of a “red king” or “rune of a mighty ruler.”
The name is patronymic, a common form of Gaelic nomenclature in which a child's surname indicates the father's given name. As such, early bearers of the name were identified as the offspring of a man named Ruaidhri, and the prefix Mac was retained even after the name was anglicised. Consequently, the modern surname appears both as McCrory and in a number of alternate spellings such as MacRory, MacCrory, MacCrorie, MacRorie and variations with the diminutive Mc.
Evidence suggests that the surname was in use in Scotland before the tenth century, during the early medieval period when the country was forming independent kingdoms. Petty's Census of 1659 records the name among the Scottish population, indicating it had become widespread by the seventeenth century. The same census also notes the name in Ireland, a testament to its early popularity across both islands.
In Ireland the McCrory sept was principally concentrated in Counties Tyrone and Derry, located in the north-west of the island. Some scholars believe these families were gallowglasses – mercenary soldiers of Scottish origin who served Irish chieftains in the fourteenth century. The association with turbulence and warfare is reflected in the martial nature of the original personal name Ruaidhri.
Spelling of the surname varied over time. The earliest documented forms include the names of Ninian and Gillepatrike Make Rori, recorded in 1298 as hostages held in Carlisle Castle, and later entries such as John Rothri (1264) and Alexander Makrore (1506) appear in Scottish legal rolls. In the south of Ireland, the name was frequently Anglicised into Rodgers or Rogers due to phonetic similarity, contributing to its relative rarity today in that region.
Notable contemporary figures bearing the surname include the late British actress Helen McCrory and the former American Governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory. Their international recognition illustrates the spread of the name beyond the British Isles, a dissemination accelerated by the Irish diaspora following the Great Famine of the 1840s.
In modern populations the name persists chiefly in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in the wider Irish diaspora in Canada and Australia. The persistence of the original Gaelic prefix Mac in many families underscores a continuity of Irish cultural identity even after centuries of Anglicisation.
Typical given names associated with the McCrory surname
Male
- Brian
- David
- James
- John
- Michael
- Patrick
- Paul
- Peter
- Stephen
- Thomas
- William
Female
- Anne
- Catherine
- Elizabeth
- Heather
- Jacqueline
- Kathleen
- Lisa
- Louise
- Margaret
- Mary
- Sarah
- Sharon
- Susan
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname McCrory in...
Braille
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Morse
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Semaphore
There are approximately 1,352 people named McCrory in the UK. That makes it roughly the 5,827th most common surname in Britain. Around 21 in a million people in Britain are named McCrory.
Surname type: From name of parent
Origin: Celtic
Region of origin: British Isles
Country of origin: Ireland
Religion of origin: Christian
Language of origin: Gaelic
Famous people named McCrory
- Helen McCrory - Actress
- Glenn McCrory - Boxer
- Sam McCrory - Ulster loyalist paramilitary
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.