Scottish Names

Rarely used un-Gaelic-sounding Scottish name with literary associations to Erskine Caldwell, author of Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre.

Macallister as a first name is attracting new attention as the name chosen by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and venture capitalist Zack Bogue for their young son. Macallister is usually heard as a patronymic surname, meaning son of Alasdair or Alistair or any one of the spellings of the Scottish form of Alexander. Like all other names of this type, Macallister leads to the cute short form Mac.

If you want a truly unusual name with authentic roots, this one certainly fits on both counts. Pronunciation may prove a stumbling block, however.

Unusual and unappealing.

There's a Perth in Scotland and a bigger one in Australia; this name could make a statement similar to Heath.

Efficient feel.

An old name still occasionally heard in the U.K., but still and perhaps forever a foreigner in the U.S. Can be spelled Ranulf.

A nice enough last name that turns supercilious as a first.

A rare but distinguished Scottish name. The original Galloway is a region in south-west Scotland, and the meaning ("stranger-Gaels") refers to its mixed population of Scandinavian and Gaelic-speaking people. It later became a surname and a sturdy breed of cattle. Galloway could be a fresh addition to better-known Scottish places like Murray and Ross.

All names ending in ville are in nowheresville.

Best known to most as a brand of Whisky, Ballantine is a Scottish surname relating to the Celtic god Bal. It has potential as a off-the-beaten-track boys name that is still familiar. Ballantine is the brand name of a whiskey, a beer, and a publishing imprint.

Most Americans would take the easy way out and spell it Willem, as in artist de Kooning and actor Dafoe.

The Mc and Mac surnames are asserting themselves as first names and this is among the most usable. MacArthur or McArthur makes a perfect honorific for an ancestral Arthur and leads directly to the nicknames Mac or Art

Historically interesting via the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which supported the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.