Macdonalds and McDonalds: Hamburgers, Murder and Japanese Diplomacy

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So if I say the name Ranald MacDonald, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Probably cheap hamburgers right? Well what if I told you that the chain of fast food restaurants is probably one of the least interesting things about the history of that surname? To many it is a proud reminder of their ancient lineage, to others it is a name of diplomacy and ties to the new world, and others still it is just a character on that Danny Davito show that went from fat to gay really quickly. But regardless of what it brings to mind, the name has a diverse and sometimes sordid history that dates back all the way to the late middle ages and today we are going to discuss what it means to be a Mcdonald and some of the lesser known Ronald Macdonalds, at least one of which I promise the fast food chain definitely does not want to be associated with.

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If you read the title of this video or have the closed captions on you may already be thinking: Why is he combining McDonalds with MAC-Donalds? Aren’t they two completely different lineages? Well no not really and there are a lot of misconceptions about this. So Mac with an A is a prefix used in Scotland and Ireland which comes from Gaelic and generally means “son of”. Basically it was used as a way to determine someone’s direct lineage based on their father’s first name or job. In Western Europe especially during the mid to late middle ages having a surname was not standardized even though other cultures like the Chinese had already done so for over a thousand years. Instead of having a family name to trace your lineage, you would have a first name that was distinct and your surname was usually something about you such as where you were from, your job or who you were directly related to, and so a surname would commonly change from generation to generation. For example, if your father was a master named Dugall, your surname may end up being either MacDugall, meaning son of Dugall or Macmaster son of the master, but if you had a son they wouldn’t be a Macmaster or MacDugall because you aren’t a master and your first name isn’t Dugall.

This naming convention was popular in both Scotland and Ireland and It was so common that it would often be abbreviated by dropping the A, so Mac became Mc and the two were used interchangeably. Sometimes it would even be shortened further to M’. Since they were seen as the same, some library systems even grouped names starting with Mc together with Mac when sorting names alphabetically. Even when surnames started becoming common there, it was normal to have the names written both ways or even change from generation to generation where one person would have a Mc last name and their son may have Mac and we will even see an example of this later in this video. It is a common misconception that Mc is Irish and Mac is Scottish or that it has to do with what religion they followed, but in reality they were completely interchangeable as one was just an abbreviation and both were and are still used in both regions today, the only difference is in modern history changing between the two has fallen out of favor due to the confusion it can cause with modern recordkeeping.

This begs the question: if the surname MacDonald means son of Donald, was there an original Donald and are all MacDonald and McDonalds related to him? Astonishingly, yes there was a Donald and also yes, the vast majority of people who come from a family lineage with the surname Mc or MacDonald can likely trace their family back to either him or another early member of one of the MacDonald clans. I’m not going to dwell too much on him because not much is known for sure and many details seem to be more based on legend than reality, but his name was Domhnall mac Raghnaill and he was born in Ireland around 1200. Now if you have been paying attention so far you may have noticed that Donald’s surname is mac Raghnaill meaning son of Raghnaill. The names are written close to their gaelic equivalent, but if anglicised the names would be Donald for his first name and his surname would be equivalent to either Reginald or Ranald. Yes, that’s right the original Donald that all MacDonalds come from’s original name was basically Donald McRonald, which is pretty crazy to think about.

So why is this Donald so special and why didn’t the surname change with the next generation like it did with him. Well as it just so happens this is around the same time in this part of Western Europe where people started keeping the same surname throughout a family lineage and it wasn’t just due to random chance, but the transition made natural sense. Power was being consolidated by feudal lords and their families; laws, taxes and recordkeeping were starting to become more standardized and important to the commoners and so adopting a family surname was advantageous to everyone. The MacDonalds family did so well that the members spread like franchisees and became some of the most powerful families in several regions in Scotland and Ireland. Slowly the clan system developed, where groups of related people who lived in the same region held local power and authority. In fact, the word clan comes from the Gaelic word clann meaning children or descendants and because they did well eventually many different local MacDonald Clans developed in both countries, with the clan name including the local territory that they govern. These clans grew and prospered for hundreds of years cementing the MacDonald name and legacy in Irish and Scottish history. One of the most notable and tragic events in MacDonald clan history happened to Clan MacDonald of Glencoe whose territory was in the Scottish Highlands. In February of 1692 the Scottish government killed about thirty members of the clan in what is now known as the Massacre of Glencoe. To simplify the whole conflict, the local clans agreed to swear loyalty to the new monarch William and his wife Mary for a payment of 12,000 pounds which is the equivalent of about 2.2 million pounds today, but in that agreement there were no provisions as to how the amount would be split among the clans and since that could not be easily resolved the clans delayed swearing loyalty until it was settled. To show that there would be consequences for doing this the government decided to pick a group to make an example of and they picked the MacDonalds of Glencoe, likely because they had a reputation for lawlessness and hence they were easy political targets that would not be likely to rile up others if they were killed. This wasn’t great, but this kind of politically driven slaughter of a group wasn’t too abnormal for the time, but what really made the government look bad was how they approached it. Recent law changes created protections to people when someone was offered hospitality, and that in exchange they would not be killed in cold blood as doing so would be considered treason. This applied here because the attack was prepared under the guise of quartering troops in their location, which allowed government troops to surround the Glencoe area without raising any suspicions, which was deemed necessary due to the fact that without the element of surprise, it was worried that many of the Glencoe MacDonalds may be able to escape. Exchanging quarter for troops was seen as offering hospitality and thus the MacDonald clan members should have been protected from being murdered, which you would think wouldn’t be a very big ask, but before these new laws were put into effect the repercussions for massacring your own people were pretty low. Despite the expectation that this unprovoked act of violence would not create much stir, the depth of the betrayal was so tragic that it shocked the Scottish peoples and ended up having far reaching implications in Scottish and British history. So much so that George R. R. Martin stated that it was one of the major influences for the infamous “Red Wedding” banquet in the Game of Thrones series. Luckily other MacDonald clans survived and their descendants slowly spread throughout the world.

Speaking of spreading throughout the world, did you know the name Donald is thought to mean one who rules or dominates the world through power? Now I could use this lazy transition to shift the discussion into talking about Donald Trump, but instead I’m going to use it to bring up the world famous hamburger chain. Given this origin the name McDonald’s seems eerily fitting for what the company has become internationally. Like many other McDonalds the company can also likely trace its origins back to the MacDonald clan as it was founded by the brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. Sadly the arguably most famous McDonald in history, Ronald McDonald can’t say the same thing as he comes from the fictional world of McDonaldland. On a side note, it is now my own personal head cannon that McDonaldland is like the Valhalla for people named McDonald. Like, they go there after they die where they can feast on Big Macs and Shamrock shakes between their epic battles against Evil Grimace for all eternity. Also second side note, how did Ronald McDonald get taken down by childhood obesity, but not a single person has complained about how racist the portrayal of the character is? I mean he has pretty much the most Scotch-Irish name imaginable, has flaming red hair, incredibly pale skin, has a diet that is almost exclusively meat and potatoes, and he is an American style clown which are known for being modeled after alcoholic tramps or hobos, the only way they could make this more obvious is if they did something like give him the stereotypical red nose that’s associated with chronic heavy alcohol use…. Oh wait what does he look like again……. Son of a Bitch! Now personally I don’t really care much that he seems to be a fairly obvious depiction of an Irish stereotype, but I just find it weird that nobody else does either. Which only furthers my theory that nobody cares if you are racist against the Irish.

And since we are on the topic of alcoholic Irish stereotypes, we should probably mention my personal favorite Ronald McDonald, and that is the one from the TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, portrayed by Rob McElhenney. This former big Mac has actually recently faced some criticism because of a recent announcement last week where he stated that he has taken the initial steps to legally change his surname to Mac, and that’s right with an A, more proof that mc and mac are interchangeable. But there have been several other Ronald McDonalds in existence and there is one that I probably respect more than any of the other ones we have discussed and that is Ranald MacDonald and yes I know how useless that reveal is even with the subtitles on.

So when researching the various different Ronald McDonalds I stumbled on something interesting, which is, in Japan the McDonald clown associated with the restaurant chain has a different first name: Donald. Yes, Donald McDonald and this was done for two reasons. The first is that Ronald is very difficult to pronounce correctly in Japanese due to the language not having phonetic differences between R and L, and because Japan already had a well known historical Ranald MacDonald and yes his name is spelled very differently. He was born in disputed territory in the Pacific Northwest in 1824 and at a young age he developed a fascination with the East and so much so that he became determined to visit Japan to learn from them and in turn teach them about the West. Sounds simple enough right? Well yes, until you realize that during this point in history Japan was under a strict isolationist policy and that foreigners found in Japan could face imprisonment or even death. To get around this he hatched a plan where he would have another ship drop him off near the coast of Japan in a small boat and then he would pretend that he was shipwrecked. He believed that if he relied on their humanity that would protect him from the consequences of breaking their isolationist policy and it worked! He ended up teaching several Samurai English and he studied Japanese in Nagasaki for several months before returning to North America. After returning he wrote to congress to notify them of all the good qualities the Japanese people had and later the students he taught ended up being instrumental in the legendary negotiations between Japan and Commodore Perry who is pictured here. Also take note that he spelled his last name Mac MAC, but yet his father seemed to prefer the MC spelling. In addition you can visit his grave that lists his last name as MAC, but the cemetery where he lies in Washington State that is named after him is spelled MC. So yeah you would think if the distinction between the two was important that they probably would have double checked when they named the cemetery after him, you know unless it is just a cemetery that is specifically reserved for Ranald McDonalds.

Now to be fair, if I am going to talk about a Ranald MacDonald to be proud of, to balance things out I should give equal time to another Ronald McDonald that the fast food chain probably does not want to be associated with, despite both having a fondness for children. Ronald McDonald, or to be more specific, which I feel is fairly justified here, Ronald Carroll McDonald, born in 1926, was convicted of serial charges of something I can’t say on YouTube with a child and was sentenced to 26 and a half years in prison. And if you feel uncomfortable now, guess what, it’s going to get a whole lot worse. You see he would groom the children through the access he got from volunteering as a babysitter for his church and from playing Santa Claus both at a shopping center during the holidays and on a volunteer basis six days a week, year round, in hospitals around the Seattle area for over 25 years. After his arrest he confessed to abusing between 45 and 70 children in total. Many who knew him were shocked when they heard of the news, noting that he was known for always being in good spirits…. It’s tragic to think about, but does nobody question what’s going on there or his motivations? The term “year-round Santa” alone should be enough to put you into some government database. I guess I am just cynical, but if that is what it is like to be Santa, I would much rather be the Grinch.. Ronald McDonald died on August 7th 2011 strangely enough in the state of Washington, just like Ranald MacDonald did almost 117 years earlier. We can only hope that he wasn’t also buried in the Ranald McDonald cemetery, but if he does end up in that great big McDonaldland in the sky, our only solace is that the Aussie Footballer Ron McDonald and second Boston Marathon runner Ronald MacDonald will likely only stop beating him to catch their breaths and taunt him by asking “would you like fries with that?!”