The Clan Donald is one of the most numerous and widespread of the Scottish clans, and includes several families, who, while using different surnames or different methods of writing the same surname, have an identical genealogical derivation. Of these, the families of MacDonald or McDonald, and MacDonnell or McDonnell, are the most important. The mode of writing is immaterial, the name is the same; they are of one stock; and the story of Clan Donald is the story of their ancestors. As told later, the Clan derived its generic name from Donald, the grandson of Somerled: and hence the name MacDonald, or son of Donald, Mac, or the Gaelic Mhic, signifying son. By abbreviating the prefix to Mc and M' many families write the name McDonald and M'Donald. The surname MacDonnell, McDonnell, McDonell, and other forms and methods of writing this name, came first into use, when, as mentioned in Chapter IV , Aeneas MacDonald of the Glengarry branch was, in >1660, raised to the Peerage of Scotland by the title of Lord MacDonell. (more)