Origin of The Name
The surname Mackenzie is of Scottish origin and derived from Gaelic. The name is an Anglicised form of the Gaelic Mac Coinnich, which is a patronymic form of the personal name Coinneach meaning "comely" or "handsome". Today personal name Coinneach is generally Anglicised as Kenneth however Kenneth was originally used as an Anglicisation of different Gaelic personal name – Cionaodh.
The Anglicised Mackenzie had originally been pronounced "Mackaingye" – with a modern English Y sound represented with the letter yogh ȝ. In the 18th century it became popular to write and pronounce the name with what is the equivalent of a modern English Z sound, because of the similarity of the letter yogh and letter Z. There are Lowland Scots words and Scottish names that have been affected in a similar way (example: the surname Menzies).
Read more about this topic: Clan Mackenzie
Famous quotes containing the words the name, origin of and/or origin:
“You remind me of a child-friend who once wrote to tell me about her sister being married. “Now I will tell you all about Bessie’s wedding.” Then came a long account of bridesmaids, and breakfast, and everything else, except the name of the bride-groom! That of course didn’t matter: the great thing was to get married somehow.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)