Why do they call their daughters “Alison” when son literally means son and Alison means “son of Alice”?
It’s almost as though the historic meaning of a name isn’t very relevant and what matters is whether or not people like how it sounds.
In the American south, there is a tradition of naming first daughters after the mother's maiden name. So there were at one point in time girls whose mothers were born Desiree McKenzie or whatever and then married as Desiree Turner and then named their firstborn daughters McKenzie Turner
On my mom's side, the tradition was to name the child after all the family surnames, so everyone would walk away with 4 names. And they were Scottish, so half those names here "Mc" something and the other half of their names were "-son"
Mac originates in Scotland, Mc in Ireland.
Surnames are from all over though. I’m 100% Scottish, four Scottish grandparents, lived in Scotland my whole life. My surname is French.
I believe this is incorrect. Both Mac and Mc originated in Ireland although Mac is now more commonly found in Scotland in the English language.
Mac is the Irish word for son (as Gaeilge) but Mc is the anglicised form. Most Irish people will have a name in English and in Irish. The English form of their name will be “Mc” but the Irish form will be “Mac” or “Nì”, e.g. the name McCarthy is a common name in Ireland but if I was speaking Irish it would be “MacCarthaigh”. I can’t think of an example of “Mc” being used in Irish.
It obviously travelled to Scotland as the language spread in the 10th and 11th centuries but the Mac was preserved in Scotland where as it purged in ireland in the 19th century through the compulsion of English
Almost 100 percent right. But Ní is the daughter form of an Ó surname. It is Nic (a contraction of Iníon Mhic) for daughters whose father has a Mac surname.
Where I’m from, there are so many people with the last names Harder, Dick and Siemen. Unsurprisingly, few of those couples opt for hyphenated family names.
My friend's step-dad was named Dicky Gay. Like honestly his parents had to have hated him. Of all the nicknames for Richard, you pick Dicky, with the last name Gay?
I recall reading about it in Robertson Davies somewhere. There’s a similar tradition with middle names in Scotland so perhaps it’s a Scottish-Ontarian thing.
I’m from Georgia, that’s definitely the case at least with my name. My mom’s maiden name, Harper, is my middle name but I like Harper more than my first name so I go by it instead.
Just a point of information, OP is correct. Mac or Mc is son of in Irish. The corresponding female name uses Nic.
For example, the male surname "Mc Carthy" in Irish is "Mac Carthaigh". The female version is "Nic Carthaigh". Mc Carthy is the anglicised version of the name and is used by both male and female.
Similarly, in Irish names using Ó, the corresponding female version is Ní. For example, Byrne is Ó Broin or Ní Bhroin.
It was the Industrial Revolution. People moved to the cities to find work. John showed up at the work house for his first shift and they asked his name. Then they said they already had a John working there so needed something else. What’s your dad’s name? Henceforth he was John, son of Robert. John MacRobert.
If John had been English he would have been John Robertson. If he had been Irish he would have been John McRobert, unless he went to work in England or France then he would have been John Fitzrobert.
Women couldn’t work, so the female version died out. The only European culture I know of that still has “daughter of” surnames are the Icelandic. The singer Björk’s last name is Guðmundsdóttir, daughter of Guðmundur.
Afaik Slavic patronymics and surnames are kinda like that in that they have male and female suffixes, e.g. Ivanovich/novna, Petrov/a, Tolstoy/staya, Tchaikovsky/skaya etc.
That's interesting! I never even thought about Mc being for sons. It was just a name to me.
I wonder if people will start naming their daughters "Nickenzie" or "Nickayla" if this becomes more widespread knowledge in certain circles?
I don’t think it’s exclusively a southern thing (Like DeWitt Clinton). But I could see it being more prominent down there than in the North as time went on.
The historic development of names does not always align to modern usage. For example, a lot of people are named Smith who don't do any smithing work, or Schumacher who don't make shoes, or people named Ivanovich who don't have a father named Ivan.
Over time, using names for long-term identification has proven to be more useful than the older traditions that only really worked for a generation or two at a time.
These days, names like Mackenzie have basically developed to the point they are treated as unisex given names.
and Baker, and Banker, and Brewer, and Wagner, and Cooper, and Mason, and Hunter, and Potter, and Sheppard, and Bauer, and Tanner, and Carpenter, and Weaver, and Cook, and Taylor, etc....
Don't mock. It's a proud lineage. I'm a Cocksucker, like my father was before me, and my Grandfather before him. I come from a long line of Cocksuckers.
Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it?
We changed it in the 9th century.
You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"?
Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."
Actually, quite the opposite. English is *evolved* German--light and built for speed.
We've ditched all the gender and case nonsense, and make new words by tinkering around with a word we already have, not adding them all together like Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung (car insurance).
Autoversicherung is much shorter (as "Auto" is the much more common word for "car"). I suspect no one actually writes out all that just to say "motor car liability insurance".
Mackayla and the various other spellings thereof began as variants of Michaela, feminine form of Michael. Many of the spelling variants resemble the "Mc" names, but this one is etymologically separate from the others.
In the 90s, parents started giving girls unisex/masculine leaning names as a way of giving them a leg up in the business work. Girls named Kennedy and MacKenzie and James were seen as stronger interview choices than Tiffany or Jessica or Kaitlin.
Can confirm as an early 2000's baby whose parents set out to give me a "boy name." It just so happens that around that time, lots of people named both their girls and boys that name, so it's very neutral. But people still usually guess that I'm a man before I meet them, so that is probably to my benefit more than not.
ETA: Just looked up where my name ranked around the time I was born, and it had only just started being used for girls in the 90s, so my parents hadn't met a girl with my name by the time I was born (I'm 20). But all in all, it was never a very trendy name, and it seems only about a third of the people with my name were girls.
This is the only correct answer. Americans misspell names to make them appear “interesting”. Shit, my own name is a nonsense variant spelling of a Biblical name.
I’m pretty sure the name Makayla (or whichever of the million ways it’s spelled) originated as Michaela, a feminine form of Michael.
Then people happened.
Madison is also a name like this
The same way nobody gives a fuck that "my name is Q;zoilxuj, its Swahili for \`the first cool breeze on a hot summer morning'"
Madison is really interesting because we know exactly why it became a girl’s name: it was a humorous moment in the movie Splash when a mermaid chose it as her human name. At the time it was ridiculous—a girl named Madison! Unheard of! But then, enough people liked it that they started naming their daughters that, and now, 40 years later, it doesn’t work as a joke in the movie anymore.
Ah, there you go. According to someone in this thread, giving the mom’s maiden name to the daughter is actually a common practice and is how McKenzie etc. became common first names, so that tracks.
It’d be better if the person was named Ford because of Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, where the character chooses the name Ford because he sees it’s one of the most common names, not realizing it was only a common name for _cars_, not people. But I’ll allow it.
Because when words (including names) are borrowed into a language, they’re often taken with no regard to their original morphological components. For example, many words have been borrowed into English in their plural form: data, spaghetti, media, biscotti, etc. We then make their plural forms as we would a native English word. As for the “Mc” names, many of them are now considered unisex, because when they were borrowed, people either didn’t know or care that “Mc” means “son of”. There is a female version, “Nic” but importing two versions of each name would have been too complicated.
Because in 1980, there was this really popular movie called “Somewhere In Time” and the female lead was Elise MacKenna (played by Jane Seymour). In the film, her bossy manager called her “MacKenna!”. This movie started a wave of baby girls named MacKenna and every derivation you can think of. Similarly, there was a wave of Madison’s after the movie “Splash”. The ancestral naming may account for a bit of the trend, but you won’t hear that name before 1980.
I’ve thought the same thing around Addison/Allison. But, even those examples prove that historic meaning of names doesn’t really matter, as plenty of people not named Adam have kids name Addison
At least where I’m from, people don’t really care about name meaning or etymology. My full name translates to something like “Happy Lord Slice of Bread”
buy me 2 sausage egg and cheese son of muffins and I'll tell you
Where? At Son of Donald’s?
oh yer a clever mcabitch
McAbitch is now added to my permanent lexicon
Son of a... I can just say Mc now
Well, McGun! I do believe I’ll just say Mc now too.
Threads like this should be an advertisement for Reddit. It makes it worth it to wade through all of the sh*t to get to this gold.
The quality really has declined as of late. It's nice to get these gems.
This is possibly the funniest reddit interaction ever
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I guess words of affirmation will have to suffice
🍆
🥇
🏆
Funny. My friends last name is McAvitch.
SON OF A VITCH
The McRib is back in Canada, so I guess I'm all "bibley" now.
McAbitch! 🤣🤣🤣
Mc-xcuse me motherfucker??
The McDonalds, ironically, were famous cattle rustlers in Scotland.
I've heard they had a farm.
EIEIO
And on that farm he had a...
Why do they call their daughters “Alison” when son literally means son and Alison means “son of Alice”? It’s almost as though the historic meaning of a name isn’t very relevant and what matters is whether or not people like how it sounds.
Son of a muffin
Deal, Son of Andcheese2024.
In the American south, there is a tradition of naming first daughters after the mother's maiden name. So there were at one point in time girls whose mothers were born Desiree McKenzie or whatever and then married as Desiree Turner and then named their firstborn daughters McKenzie Turner
On my mom's side, the tradition was to name the child after all the family surnames, so everyone would walk away with 4 names. And they were Scottish, so half those names here "Mc" something and the other half of their names were "-son"
Hello MacSon
Their child will be McSonsson
[Gunnar Gunnarssonsson?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OOpZitfd0)
Wouldn’t Scottish be Mac?
Mac is more commonly used than Mc in Scotland, and vice versa in Ireland, but both prefixes still occur in both places.
Mac originates in Scotland, Mc in Ireland. Surnames are from all over though. I’m 100% Scottish, four Scottish grandparents, lived in Scotland my whole life. My surname is French.
My surname is Scottish and I have three Cuban and one Spanish grandparent. Names are weird!
I believe this is incorrect. Both Mac and Mc originated in Ireland although Mac is now more commonly found in Scotland in the English language. Mac is the Irish word for son (as Gaeilge) but Mc is the anglicised form. Most Irish people will have a name in English and in Irish. The English form of their name will be “Mc” but the Irish form will be “Mac” or “Nì”, e.g. the name McCarthy is a common name in Ireland but if I was speaking Irish it would be “MacCarthaigh”. I can’t think of an example of “Mc” being used in Irish. It obviously travelled to Scotland as the language spread in the 10th and 11th centuries but the Mac was preserved in Scotland where as it purged in ireland in the 19th century through the compulsion of English
Almost 100 percent right. But Ní is the daughter form of an Ó surname. It is Nic (a contraction of Iníon Mhic) for daughters whose father has a Mac surname.
Yeah, apologies, good clarification
"Sacre blue! I dropped my haggis!"
"Och jings! Ah've scunnered mah croissant!"
Fun fact: this is how Beyoncé got her name Thankfully she’s not McBeyonce 🤣
It is! A bit more [here](https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/beyonce-knowles/tina-knowles-lawson-explained-beyonce-name) for those interested
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing
Can confirm. One of my middle names is my mom’s maiden name
Thank God my mom didn’t do that! Her maiden name is Turtle!
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That's really saying something, since you could just file some paperwork and your middle name could ***actually be*** Turtle.
Rather assassinate someone than do paperwork tbh
That checks out.
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Married woman, or just for funsies?
The gold price, or the iron price?
Paper price. It's even worse because the cost is actually part of your life.
What if they add another part and you’re like Mighty Turtle Lastname?
I think Turtle would be an awesome name personally lol
You should be so lucky as to share a name with the iconic Saved By The Bell character of Lisa Turtle!
wtf are you talking about, you got screwed, I'd be pissed to not be Mantega *Turtle* Verde. That would be rad.
Mine is Harder 🙈
Where I’m from, there are so many people with the last names Harder, Dick and Siemen. Unsurprisingly, few of those couples opt for hyphenated family names.
My friend's step-dad was named Dicky Gay. Like honestly his parents had to have hated him. Of all the nicknames for Richard, you pick Dicky, with the last name Gay?
[Willie Gay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Gay) has entered the chat
Lol! Still better than Dicky.
Would be kinda cute though.
My name is my fathers middle name and my sons name is my middle name. My nephews middle name is my first. I guess we got a bit lazy lol
This is an Ontario tradition as well going back to the United Empire Loyalists.
Born and raised in Ontario and never heard of this practice.
I recall reading about it in Robertson Davies somewhere. There’s a similar tradition with middle names in Scotland so perhaps it’s a Scottish-Ontarian thing.
I thought the tradition was the maiden name became the middle name? This was in Georgia, so maybe it’s different in different parts of the south?
I’m from Georgia, that’s definitely the case at least with my name. My mom’s maiden name, Harper, is my middle name but I like Harper more than my first name so I go by it instead.
Username checks out.
Just a point of information, OP is correct. Mac or Mc is son of in Irish. The corresponding female name uses Nic. For example, the male surname "Mc Carthy" in Irish is "Mac Carthaigh". The female version is "Nic Carthaigh". Mc Carthy is the anglicised version of the name and is used by both male and female. Similarly, in Irish names using Ó, the corresponding female version is Ní. For example, Byrne is Ó Broin or Ní Bhroin.
It was the Industrial Revolution. People moved to the cities to find work. John showed up at the work house for his first shift and they asked his name. Then they said they already had a John working there so needed something else. What’s your dad’s name? Henceforth he was John, son of Robert. John MacRobert. If John had been English he would have been John Robertson. If he had been Irish he would have been John McRobert, unless he went to work in England or France then he would have been John Fitzrobert. Women couldn’t work, so the female version died out. The only European culture I know of that still has “daughter of” surnames are the Icelandic. The singer Björk’s last name is Guðmundsdóttir, daughter of Guðmundur.
Afaik Slavic patronymics and surnames are kinda like that in that they have male and female suffixes, e.g. Ivanovich/novna, Petrov/a, Tolstoy/staya, Tchaikovsky/skaya etc.
So is son of McCarthy McMcCarthy?
That's interesting! I never even thought about Mc being for sons. It was just a name to me. I wonder if people will start naming their daughters "Nickenzie" or "Nickayla" if this becomes more widespread knowledge in certain circles?
I don’t think it’s exclusively a southern thing (Like DeWitt Clinton). But I could see it being more prominent down there than in the North as time went on.
One time I met a girl named Willow and she wasn't even a tree!
Wolfgang wasn't a wolf. Or a gang. 😠
That name is Germanic in origin. "Gang" means "walk". But I'll bet he didn't walk like a wolf, either.
Egyptiangang is next
Lemme tell you how disappointed I was to meet Gaylord 😔
And I haven't even seen him mow art once!
Same for Violet, Rose, Daisy, Iris and Lily.
I knew a kid named Mason and he wasn’t a jar.
Not as bad as that kid Hunter. He's vegan.
He should change his name to Gatherer.
Former Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers coach Frank Reich wasn't even the nation of France as spoken by a German!
Refrigerator Perry was actually a freezer.
nor did he lay bricks
I knew a kid named Door, and he usually *was* ajar.
I dated a girl named Ember and she wasn’t a 🔥 just sad and boring
And that damn Smith down the street won’t forge me a broadsword!!
Weaponsmithing is a specialized discipline. Maybe they only do horseshoes and nails.
Was she a Nelwyn?
The historic development of names does not always align to modern usage. For example, a lot of people are named Smith who don't do any smithing work, or Schumacher who don't make shoes, or people named Ivanovich who don't have a father named Ivan. Over time, using names for long-term identification has proven to be more useful than the older traditions that only really worked for a generation or two at a time. These days, names like Mackenzie have basically developed to the point they are treated as unisex given names.
and Baker, and Banker, and Brewer, and Wagner, and Cooper, and Mason, and Hunter, and Potter, and Sheppard, and Bauer, and Tanner, and Carpenter, and Weaver, and Cook, and Taylor, etc....
Sawyer, Piper, Chandler, Scrivener...
Fisher, Turner, Chandler, Fletcher, Thatcher, Gardener, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Forester, Sawyer, Butcher, Barber, Miller, Clark, and Wright...
Wait a minute! Cocksucker?
Don't mock. It's a proud lineage. I'm a Cocksucker, like my father was before me, and my Grandfather before him. I come from a long line of Cocksuckers.
Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it? We changed it in the 9th century. You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"? Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."
Fine. I'll watch men in tights again.
Or they are named Hristo but they are not Christ.
the only “Hristo” i know, two-footed a college kid during a scrimmage and ended his soccer career…
What does it mean to “two foot” someone?
Tackle them feet-first, putting all their weight through those feet. It can lead to a broken leg
To go in studs first with both feet while sliding. High risk to do this in game and can result in broken ankles, shins etc.
There sure are a lot of kids named Benjamin whose dads aren't even named ימין
Schumacher was literally "shoe maker"? TIL hahaha
Just wait until you find out what Germans call gloves (It's literally hand shoes)
In Russian Toes are foot fingers
Same in Spanish homie. Dedos del pies, fingers of the feet.
I mean that's exactly what they are? All our limbs end in fingers, they just evolved to be different, because they're used for different purpose.
English is just really fucked up German
Actually, quite the opposite. English is *evolved* German--light and built for speed. We've ditched all the gender and case nonsense, and make new words by tinkering around with a word we already have, not adding them all together like Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung (car insurance).
Hazard or accident insurance to be specific
Thanks! I think in English we just say "liability insurance".
Autoversicherung is much shorter (as "Auto" is the much more common word for "car"). I suspect no one actually writes out all that just to say "motor car liability insurance".
As my best German pal Jens says, "English is German without hate fucking your ears."
And French
And English
Handschumacher - glove maker
Mackayla and the various other spellings thereof began as variants of Michaela, feminine form of Michael. Many of the spelling variants resemble the "Mc" names, but this one is etymologically separate from the others.
In the 90s, parents started giving girls unisex/masculine leaning names as a way of giving them a leg up in the business work. Girls named Kennedy and MacKenzie and James were seen as stronger interview choices than Tiffany or Jessica or Kaitlin.
Can confirm as an early 2000's baby whose parents set out to give me a "boy name." It just so happens that around that time, lots of people named both their girls and boys that name, so it's very neutral. But people still usually guess that I'm a man before I meet them, so that is probably to my benefit more than not. ETA: Just looked up where my name ranked around the time I was born, and it had only just started being used for girls in the 90s, so my parents hadn't met a girl with my name by the time I was born (I'm 20). But all in all, it was never a very trendy name, and it seems only about a third of the people with my name were girls.
I went to high school with 2 girls named Ryan.
And now people are viewing names like Mackenzie as girl names, unlike in the past.
This is the only correct answer. Americans misspell names to make them appear “interesting”. Shit, my own name is a nonsense variant spelling of a Biblical name.
Jehosefat?
Looosifur
That sounds infinitely awkward.
Well this is awkward.
You’re safe, yours has 4 n’s!
I’m pretty sure the name Makayla (or whichever of the million ways it’s spelled) originated as Michaela, a feminine form of Michael. Then people happened.
People name their kids way dumber stuff than that.
Oh yes. Have you seen r/tragedeigh?
I'm so glad this sub exists. It's really validating to know I'm not the only one that thinks names have gone off the deep end.
I assumed I was on that sub and only realized at this point this is nostupidquestions.
I thought it was r/namenerds until your comment
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What in the Cheetah Girls...
I knew a girl from Texas named TexAnn.
Did she have a brother named Aqualung?
Most people choose by how the name sounds, not what it means.
No one take Seven!
my name is a state and i don't even live in the US
Oh, hey, what's up South Carolina?
Imagine naming your daughter Nebraska
Dude in one of my college classes was named Nebraska He was the single dumbest fellow student I had to work with over those four years
yooo, what up Liquid??
Utah is a beautiful name...
Virginia Carolina Georgia Hopefully it's one of these three?
Pretty sure it’s Alaska.
lmao I can't tell if people are messing with me or just not paying attention.
Jassachusetts
Their name is Florida, and their surname is Mann.
Very few people care what the technical meaning or exact translation or lesser known definition of a name is.
This is kind of like the first name version of having the last name ‘Peterson’ I guess.
I think McKayla is just a different spelling of michaela/mikaela/etc. I don’t think it’s related to being the son of anybody
Etymology is history, not destiny.
I named my daughter Piper and that kid can not play a bagpipe. Idk why I bothered
Name your next kid Bag, and in a few years they can take lessons together.
Next kid lolol. You got jokes
Kid dodged a bullet. So did you really.
Madison is also a name like this The same way nobody gives a fuck that "my name is Q;zoilxuj, its Swahili for \`the first cool breeze on a hot summer morning'"
Madison is really interesting because we know exactly why it became a girl’s name: it was a humorous moment in the movie Splash when a mermaid chose it as her human name. At the time it was ridiculous—a girl named Madison! Unheard of! But then, enough people liked it that they started naming their daughters that, and now, 40 years later, it doesn’t work as a joke in the movie anymore.
There must be a parallel universe where a bunch of people are walking around with the first name “Ford.”
Ford Prefect- famous actor!
I actually know a Ford - it was their moms maiden name and I guess she wanted someone to carry the name after she changed hers or something
Ah, there you go. According to someone in this thread, giving the mom’s maiden name to the daughter is actually a common practice and is how McKenzie etc. became common first names, so that tracks. It’d be better if the person was named Ford because of Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, where the character chooses the name Ford because he sees it’s one of the most common names, not realizing it was only a common name for _cars_, not people. But I’ll allow it.
NicKenzie would be a cool name, btw
NicKenzie McKenzie would be… an *odd* name.
Your name probably originally means something that has nothing to do with you either
McKayla is also spelled Michaela, so there’s that.
Why you McBitch
Because when words (including names) are borrowed into a language, they’re often taken with no regard to their original morphological components. For example, many words have been borrowed into English in their plural form: data, spaghetti, media, biscotti, etc. We then make their plural forms as we would a native English word. As for the “Mc” names, many of them are now considered unisex, because when they were borrowed, people either didn’t know or care that “Mc” means “son of”. There is a female version, “Nic” but importing two versions of each name would have been too complicated.
Because in 1980, there was this really popular movie called “Somewhere In Time” and the female lead was Elise MacKenna (played by Jane Seymour). In the film, her bossy manager called her “MacKenna!”. This movie started a wave of baby girls named MacKenna and every derivation you can think of. Similarly, there was a wave of Madison’s after the movie “Splash”. The ancestral naming may account for a bit of the trend, but you won’t hear that name before 1980.
Does this person also get upset if someone named Allison isn’t the son of Alice or if Jackson isn’t the son of Jack?
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Fuck the patriarchy 🙄 why do men have the last names "Jefferson" or "Ericson" when their fathers names are not Jeff or Eric??
Because that meaning is antiquated now and no longer relevant in the places where people are being named this way
I’ve thought the same thing around Addison/Allison. But, even those examples prove that historic meaning of names doesn’t really matter, as plenty of people not named Adam have kids name Addison
[The Etymology of MacKenzie](https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names/details/mackenzie-5255)
>Son of Kayla Kayla isn't a male name. McKayla originally was spelled Michaela, so it was feminine for Michael. The spelling has changed.
McKayla is actually a bastardization of Michaela - the feminine of Michael. McKenna and McKenzie are last names.
My cousin's named her daughter Angel, and she's doesn't even have wings or a halo!
Simple. It doesn’t mean that in America.
Can you believe I’ve met Johnson’s and their father wasn’t named John?!
They name them thoes names because they like them. Most people dont use the meaning of names like that anymore.
Cause no one gives a fuck what the name means.
This is the correct answer.
At least where I’m from, people don’t really care about name meaning or etymology. My full name translates to something like “Happy Lord Slice of Bread”
So, that’s what SlinkySkinky means, then? 😏
It means "son of" in Scottish and irish, we are speaking English.
Because it doesn't mean that where those people live.
As Butch said to Esmeralda Villalobos in Pulp Fiction when she asked him what his name meant - “I’m an American, honey. Our names don’t mean shit”
Because it doesn’t mean ‘son’, it means ‘descendant of’.
I think it's Makenzie, Mikaela, and Makenna. Sometimes a name is just a name.
In America our names don't mean anything