McCants
An Anglo-Scottish surname most likely meaning “son of Cants” or “son of Cant,” with the prefix Mc/Mac marking descent.
The #5,542 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 49,242 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McCants is a surname built on the Gaelic patronymic prefix Mac or Mc, meaning “son of.” The second element is likely a form of the personal name Cant or Cants, which itself is probably related to a byname rather than a common word. In practice, the name means “son of Cant/Cants,” though the exact source of the root is not certain.
History
The surname is most familiar in Scotland and in families of Scottish or Ulster-Scottish descent, with later spread into the United States. As with many Mc- surnames, spellings often varied when families moved into English-speaking records, producing forms such as McCants and related variants. The name is especially well established in the American South.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Like many Mc- surnames, McCants preserves a Gaelic kinship marker that originally identified a family line rather than a fixed modern surname.