Who belongs to Clan MacBean?
Our Gaelic name is
MacBheathain
(Meaning - Son of the Lively One)
Prounounced MacBain in Scotland
(Click on the Name to hear it pronounced!)
The "bh" in the Gaelic has a "bv" sound . The "ea" has the harsh "a" . The "th" has an h sound. the "ai" has the harsh "e" sound. This becomes "Macbvaheen. This is why there are so many spellings of the sound. For a long time, everything was spelled phonetically. There was no set way. You can find one family member that spelled his name one way and his brothers spelled it another way. Many rocords show the names spelled the way the recorder spelled it, not the way the family spelled it.
The Prefix of "Mac" means "Son of". As time passed, many people dropped the a and put a line underneath the "Mc" with two dots to show that the a was suppose to be there. Later the lines and dots were dropped altogether. Some times you will find M' which means the same as Mac. Mack is also accepted.
Clans & Septs
What is a Clan? What is a Sept?
A Clan means a family. People of the same lineage settled in the same area. There was a Chief that was the ruler over the whole family. He was responsible for his people. He was the one that had to be sure that they had enough to eat and clothes on their backs. In return, they helped in what ever he needed them to do. If he called for the clan to gather for battle, it was their duty to respond by showing up. As the families became larger and moved to other surrounding areas to take up residence, they were still responsible to the Chief of the whole family - Clan. The Chief gives the Clan members protection and the Clan Members give their loyalty to the Chief.
If a family moved further away and found themselves in another Clans area, they could ask for protection from that Chief. If he accepted them, they became a Sept of his Clan and they gave their loyalty to this new Chief.
Clan MacBean was known as an ever war like clan. They liked to fight. At one point there was a split in the Clan over the amount of fighting and some of the Clan moved to another area and became a Sept of Clan MacKay.
Basic Forms of the Name
(Across the centuries, in common with all ancient Highland clans, there was no "correct" or even uniform spelling of MAC BAIN. However, MacBean was, perhaps, most frequently used.)
Mac means " son of" and has been written as Mac - Mack - Mc - M'. Below are different variations that have developed frm our Gaelic name
Alvin Elvain Ilwane
Bain Elvaine Ilwee
Baine Elvane Vain
Baines Elvayne Vaine
Bane Elveen Vane
Bayn Elwane Vayn
Beain Elwain Vaynes
Bean Elwee Vean
Beane Ilvain Veane
Bee Ilvaine Vee
Beean Ilvayne Veen
Been Ilvean Veene
Beene Ilveen Vian
Beth Ilveene Wain
Binnie Ilwain Waine
Bheath Ilwaine Wane
Cabeen Cabean Cabeane
MacAlbea
People of this name were tenants on the estate of Balnespick in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The name has entirely died out or become merged with that of Macbean. It was at one time the common local name in Badenoch of a small sept of Macbains known as clann 'ac' Albheatha, probably a form of Maelbeth. Popular tradition, ignorant of the true meaning of the name, made the sept of Macbain the descendant of a foundling child left in the retreat of the Young Pretender's army on Alvie Moor, under a birch bush, where some countymen found the fair-haired boy and brought him up as M'Geal-bheithe, "White son of the Birch"(A. Macbain)(G.F.Black)
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