McGaha
An Irish surname likely built from a Gaelic personal name, now found chiefly in the United States.
The #8,676 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 81,528 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McGaha is an Anglicized Irish surname with the prefix Mc- meaning “son of.” The second element is probably a reduced or altered form of a Gaelic personal name, but the exact original name is not certain from general evidence alone. In other words, the surname most likely began as “son of” someone whose given name has since been obscured by English spelling.
History
The name appears in English-language records in a variety of spellings, reflecting the difficulty of rendering Gaelic names consistently. Like many Irish surnames, it became further standardized after migration to North America, where McGaha is now most visible. Its modern distribution suggests a family name that was carried abroad and preserved in altered anglicized form.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Names beginning with Mc- usually point to an ancestral father or forebear, even when the original Gaelic root is no longer obvious.