"Matthew Dimmock and Gerald ‘Mac’ MacLean gave me the benefit of their unrivalled expertise in the field..." (Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle- Elizabethan England and the Islamic World, Acknowledgements)
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4Mr. MacLean is known by his friends not as Gerald, but as Mac.– rajah9Commented Sep 1, 2020 at 12:33
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Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. Charles 'Lucky' Lindberg. Florence ('Flo-Jo') Griffith-Joyner.– Edwin AshworthCommented Sep 1, 2020 at 15:15
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2 Answers
The prefix Mac occurs in many Scottish Surnames: MacNair, MacLeod, MacLean ... an almost endless list. Its original meaning was "son of..". In Scotland it would be unusual to shorten it to 'Mac' because that would lead too easily to confusion with other people.
If such a person is elsewhere in the world, their friends may acknowledge the (real or imagined) Scots origin by calling them 'Mac'. It seems likely that Gerald M MacLean (universities of Oxford and Exeter) may have suffered this from sometimes patronising soubriquet.
Nicknames are put in quotation marks between the first and last names: Ringgold “Ring” Lardner, William “Bill” Clinton, Joseph “Sleepy Joe” Biden.
Gerald “Mac” MacLean is known to his friends as just “Mac”.
answered Sep 1, 2020 at 21:35
