Origin of the Name MacEvinney
The ancient history of the name
MacEvinney was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. Variants of the Irish name McEvinney include McAvinney, McAvinna, McAvinue, McGivena, Magivney and several others. These names are derived from the Gaelic MacAibhne sept name.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
When Gaelic names were anglicized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were often changed to Anglo equivalents that sounded most like their original Gaelic name. This sept were a branch of the O'Cahans in County Derry in the very northern part of Ireland . This name and its variants are also anglicized forms of the MacDhuibhne sept who were of Breffny, in the modern Counties of Cavan and Leitrim.
The MacEvinney coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all MacEvinney descendants.