McLain
An Anglicized Scottish and Irish surname usually treated as a Mc/Mac form meaning “son of Lain/Lam” or, in older speculation, “son of misfortune.”
The #2,109 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 18,001 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McLain is an Anglicized Mc/Mac surname. In Gaelic names, Mac means “son of,” and the second element is often a personal name or nickname that has been altered by spelling change over time. The 19th-century source provided glosses it as “son of misfortune,” but that explanation is speculative and not generally accepted as a secure modern etymology; the surname is more commonly treated as an Anglicized Gaelic patronymic with several possible underlying Gaelic forms.
History
The name is found in Scottish and Irish surname traditions, and its many spellings reflect the shift from Gaelic naming into English orthography. In North America, McLain became established through immigration and later spelling stabilization, alongside close variants such as MacLain, McLean, and McLaine. Because the name overlaps with better-known surnames like McLean, records can be inconsistent across generations.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
This surname is often confused with McLean, and older printed sources sometimes tried to explain it through fanciful Gaelic wordplay rather than a single fixed family-name origin.
From the historical record
“Owens, and Owenson, are all from the same roots. McLain. Mac, son ; leiine, pronounced laine, genitive of leiin, misfortune, misery. Son of misfortune. McLuth. Mac, son ; liiait, genitive of luat, swiftness. Son of swiftness.”
— Family Names from the Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman and Scotch