McRae
A Scottish surname meaning “son of Rae,” with Rae usually treated as a personal name or nickname.
The #1,987 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 17,005 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McRae is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Craith, usually explained as “son of Craith” or “son of Rae,” depending on the spelling tradition. The second element is generally treated as a personal name or byname rather than a common noun, so the surname is patronymic in form. Older writers also connected it with spellings such as Mac Craw, Mac Crie, and Mac Crea, showing how fluid the name was in Scots and Gaelic sources.
History
The name is strongly associated with the Scottish Highlands, especially the Clan MacRae. Historical spellings vary widely, and 19th-century surname writers often treated MacRae, MacRay, MacCrie, and related forms as variants of the same family name. In North America the spelling McRae became especially common, while MacRae remains a standard Scottish form.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century authors even warned that some MacRae-like spellings could be hard to separate from each other in records, because the name was often written in several interchangeable forms.
From the historical record
“MAC CREA (Celt, or Celt.-Teut.)SpN OF Rea, q.v. Also for Mac Crae = MacRae, q.v. MAC CREADIE) (Celt. + Teut.) Son of MAC CREADY J Reddie, adim.of Redmond, q.v.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)