The
surname means ‘son of Fionnghal’, an old Gaelic personal
name that derives from the words fionn ‘fair haired’
and gal ‘valour’. The full meaning of the surname
is therefore, ‘son of the fair haired valorous one’.
The Gaelic ending gal is usually interpreted in a ‘warrior
sence’. The originator of the McGinleys (whoever he may have
been), most likely was a fearless warrior.
Most
Irish surnames usually start with Ó or Mac.
In our surname, Mag is an occasional variant of Mac
that is found with surnames following with an aspirated/silent 'F'
or a vowel. The letter F is silent (as is the last G in the older
Gaelic spelling). The pronunciation for the Irish form is Magunaluh
or Maginaluh (both said quickly). The Mag-surname forms
are predominantly found in Ulster (Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry,
Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone). Historically,
in the northern half of Ireland, there has been a tendancy to soften
the hard sound of the letter ‘c’ in Mac allowing
the variant Mag to develop. Mag-surnames can be
found in some parts of north Connacht that are close to Ulster (or
had large Ulster settlement after the 1600's) such as Leitrim, Mayo,
Roscommon and Sligo. Mag-surnames are very rare in other
parts of Ireland and do not occur at all in Gaelic Scotland.
