Arising from the earlier thread on mac**** surnames, but lost somewhere in the process, was the issue raised by Nigel of the official records being in Latin or English and probably not too closely representative of the language of the Manx people at the time.

The early Manorial rolls seem to be the most representative 'translations' of phonetic Manx for personal names in that they contain ine and mac as words separated from names and acting as origin descriptors - often in conjunction with what we now accept as a Manx surname. This mirrors naming practice in Wales (e.g. David ap William, and with David's son Michael being known as Michael ap David Williams etc). By the end of the 16th century this practice appears to have ended in official Manx records where single-word heriditary surnames had become the norm. The various Manx Surname studies concentrated on naming evidence from official records - but if the vernacular language continued, passed from mother to child through the generations, the official records may not be the whole story.

Did colloquial Manx speakers continue with ancestry descriptors in the spoken language? - were people refered to by traditional name forms in addition to their 'official' names? The recordings of the last native Manx speakers suggest that this was indeed the case in some rural areas until the mid 20th century.

I would be interested in hearing of any specific examples in your family of such practice from the 17th century and more recently.