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Hi, I have not posted in a while, but I have held forth on the McInnish to McKinney question before. A search of my posts will show what I said before. Basically ish is not even spelled ish in Gaidhlig, which was not in general written down anyway. Original naming patterns were a single given name followed by either an adjective like John the young (og), John the dark (dubh), etc. if there was a distingishing feature to the man. Most names would include the father or even the grandfather, as in Iain mac Iain mac Iain for John the son of John, the son of John. If there ever was a clan Innish, and I am not sure that there was, that would be the answer to "Co as a tha sibh?" = Where (who) are you from?--not your name. McInnish is an Englishism of the naming patterns that occurred when the Gaidhlig speaker had to blend in with English speaking peoples. It means son of Angus. Mac Aoghnas + slenderization for the genitive = Mac Aoghnais which is pronounced "Muc own ish" I am sorry, I am only a 5 year learner, but I am sure that there is no ee sound in there at all. I have never truly figured out why so many names wound up as McKinney. (I even have cousins who spell it McKenney to this day, but no McInnishes, as we are really MacKenzies.) Maybe it was to blend in, maybe there was some advantage in numbers. McKinney and its variants is fairly common in the US, being about 300th in frequency.
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