Kilmory - Is "Crawford" the same as "McGraffan"

[Rakiura John]

Hi
Does anyone know whether Crawford and McGraffan are variations of the same surname, and used interchangeably in Kilmory (c1770's)?

[GR2]

I wouldn't have thought it. The name McGraffan does not appear in Black's "Surnames of Scotland". Looking at the OPR indexes on ScotlandsPeople, the name seems to be confined to the island of Arran, with a couple of instances in Ardrossan and Stevenston on the Ayrshire coast across from Arran.

The name Crawford comes from a place-name in Lanarkshire.
What makes you wonder if they are the same?

[trish1120]

FreeREG has 91 entries for the surname Crawford c 1772-1801 in Kilmory.

+ 2 for McGraffan;

Kathrine MCGRAFFAN
John ROBISON Marriage 1724

Alexr MCGRAFFAN Bapt 28 Jul 1777

+ using soundex option several entries  1701-1779 eg under  MCGRAFAN/MCGRAFFEN/MCGRAFFON etc.

Trish
(from Hamilton NZ)

[heywood]

This is from Wikipedia and there are similar references elsewhere.

“The surname Crawford corresponds to the Scottish Gaelic MacCreamhain and the Irish de Cráfort, Mac Crábhagáin, and Mac Raith.”

[Forfarian]

Black is more academically rigorous than Wikipedia! He says that Crawford and variants are of territorial orgin from the place in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire.

MacCreamhain is a Gaelic patronymic, i.e. "son of Creamhain" which would sound more like MacCreaven, 'mh' being pronounced like 'v'.

Does Wikipedia give any sort of source for its statement?

I doubt that there is any historically proven connection between Crawford and McGraffan, but that doesn't mean that they could not have been used as if there were. There are plenty of examples of unconnected names that have come to be used interchangeably - Janet/Jessie and Donald/Daniel being the most obvious. Why not Crawford/McGraffan?

[heywood]

I only quoted it as a possibility. 

I was thinking of Irish really with ‘ea’ as ‘a’ sound and as you say ‘mh’ as ‘v’ so perhaps it could have a similar pronunciation to ‘McGraffan’.

Here is the Wikipedia reference for the source
“Mark, C (2003). The Gaelic-English Dictionary. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-27706-6.”

[Forfarian]

Have to have a look at that dictionary and see where the statement comes from. It looks inherently unlikely that a surname of territorial origin and a patronymic would be from the same source, but you never know.

[Rakiura John]

GR2. My query was initiated by the case of Catherine McNeil - FamilySearch Ref KHNK-BRF

[GR2]

GR2. My query was initiated by the case of Catherine McNeil - FamilySearch Ref KHNK-BRF

I see it says Isabel Crawford or McGraffan. In Scotland women are always referred to by their maiden names in legal documents and in the OPRs. If they are married, their married surname can be added in the format "or xxxxx". So Isabel Crawford is her maiden name, and being married to Mr McGraffan, she is officially Isabel Crawford or McGraffan.