My parents went on a golfing vacation to Ireland two years ago, and while there they intended to try to find some relatives and look into our family history a little bit. Unfortunately, they neglected to do any investigation prior to their trip. Much to their surprise, they found that there was not one McDonald in all of Ireland.
My dad was very confused, so when they came back he asked his aunt Leona why this was. She proceeded to explain to him that our name is not really McDonald -- it's McDonnell. One relative here who is 96 even has his birth certificate which says McDonnell.
This came as something of a surprise to us, but it makes sense. Many of the Irish immigrants were illiterate, and considering the accent, the person writing down the name could easily misunderstand what was being said.
This happened with other Irish names besides our own. Still, it's odd to think that millions of restaurants around the world are incorrectly named.
As disconcerting as this news was, it shouldn't have really come as a shock. My family has a history of switching names around. My great-grandparents had nine little McDonalds, and every time one was born, they would decide on a name together.
But my great-grandfather was the one who would actually fill out the birth certificates, and he would put down whatever he pleased without letting anybody else know.
Take Aunt Leona for example. Her driver's license says that her name is Leona and that is what everyone has always called her, but on her birth certificate it says that her name is Anne. You can imagine what a surprise this was when she discovered it at age 20. The same situation existed for her brother Henry or Bill. I can never remember which was his real name.
By far the strangest case was my own grandfather. His name was Thomas, but everyone in the family called him Pete, except for his mother who called him by his middle name, Albert. Everyone outside the family knew him as Tom, so at any given time three different names could all be directed at one person.
This caused a good deal of confusion for my grandmother when she first met the family. My grandfather was away at seminary (ironically) when he met her, so she had known him only as Tom. It must have been odd when she found out that he went by a different name at home.
My brother and I are both named after him. My middle name is Thomas, and my brother's name is Pete. I don't think I ever understood this fact when I was younger, and even today all the family names take some time to straighten out.
This little family quirk is the reason that I'm not really bothered by my last name not being my real last name. Learning this did give me a minor identity crisis, but after reflecting on our little family history of names, I realized that it was more fitting that our real name is different.
After all, the names and symbols that we have in our life are only special because of the people behind them, which is something that is important to remember, but can be easy to forget.
