Scots-Irish Surnames

Who Are the Scots-Irish?

The Scots-Irish (called Ulster-Scots in Britain and Ireland) are the descendants of Scottish Presbyterians who settled Ulster — the northern province of Ireland — beginning in the 17th century. They are neither fully Scottish nor fully Irish but something distinct: a people shaped by 100 years in Ulster between their departure from Scotland and their arrival in America.

The Plantation of Ulster, which began formally in 1610 following the Flight of the Earls, brought thousands of Scottish settlers — mainly from the western Lowlands and the Border country — into Counties Antrim, Down, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Donegal. They brought Presbyterian religion, Scots language, and the cultural patterns of the Border country with them. They interacted with — and sometimes fought with — the native Irish population, the English Protestant settlers, and the established Church of Ireland.

The Second Migration: Ulster to America

Between approximately 1715 and 1775, an estimated 250,000 Ulster-Scots emigrated to the American colonies. Push factors included rack-renting (exploitative rent increases), failed harvests, religious discrimination against Presbyterians (who could not hold public office under the Test Acts), and economic depression in the Ulster linen trade. They landed primarily at Philadelphia and then pushed south and west — into the Shenandoah Valley, the Carolina backcountry, and eventually Appalachia.

By 1800, Scots-Irish settlements extended from Pennsylvania to Georgia along the spine of the Appalachians. They were the dominant cultural group in the southern highlands — the people who produced Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, and a string of other US presidents of Scots-Irish descent.

Scots-Irish Surnames in American History

Presidential surnames

The Scots-Irish contribution to the American presidency is disproportionate. Fourteen US presidents have claimed Scots-Irish descent:

• Andrew Jackson — parents from Carrickfergus, County Antrim
• James K. Polk — Polk is a corruption of the Scots name Pollock
• James Buchanan — from Ramelton, County Donegal
• Andrew Johnson — grandfather from Mounthill, County Antrim
• Ulysses S. Grant — maternal grandfather from Dungannon, County Tyrone
• Chester Arthur — father from County Antrim
• Grover Cleveland — maternal grandparents from Tyrone
• Benjamin Harrison — grandfather William Henry Harrison also of Scots-Irish descent
• William McKinley — the McKinley name is specifically Ulster-Scots
• Woodrow Wilson — grandfather from Strabane, County Tyrone

Frontier surnames

Boone (Daniel Boone — Boone is an English/Norman surname but Daniel Boone lived in the Scots-Irish Appalachian world), Crockett (Davy Crockett — from a Scots-Irish family in Tennessee), Carson (Kit Carson), Houston (Sam Houston — Houston is specifically an Ayrshire Scots surname, from Houston in Renfrewshire) — the frontier heroes of American mythology were disproportionately Scots-Irish, and their surnames reflect it.

Identifying Scots-Irish Surnames

Scots-Irish surnames can be distinguished from other Scottish surnames by their distribution in American records — concentrated in Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Appalachia — and by their Ulster origins. Common Scots-Irish naming patterns include:

• Scottish surnames with strong Ulster concentration: Johnston (note the Scots-Irish spelling vs English Johnson), Caldwell, McClung, Gilchrist
• Biblical given names: the Scots-Irish named children after Old Testament figures — Ezekiel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah — in a way that English settlers did not
• Double-barrelled names retained as single surnames: McDowell, McCoy, McGee