Mac Suibhne Mac Suibhne The Gaelic surname Mac Suibhne is a patronymic form of "Suibhne" and means "son of "Suibhne"". The personal name "Suibhne" means "pleasant". Anglicised forms of "Mac Suibhne" include: "McSeveney", "McSeveny", "McSween", "McSweeney", "McSweeny", "McSwiney", "Sweaney", "Sween", "Sweeney", "Sweenie", "Sweeny", "Sweney", "Swiney", "Swinney", A lenited variant form of "Mac Suibhne" is "Mac Shuibhne". Anglicised forms of the latter Gaelic name include: (possibly) "Mawhinney", "McQueen", "McQueeney", "McQueenie", (possibly) "McWhinney", "Queen", "Queeney", "Wheen". One particular family that has borne the surname "Mac Suibhne" is Clann Suibhne. Members of this Scottish family settled in Ulster as gallowglass warriors in the Middle Ages.
Mac and Mc together in print two publications on filing rules, one covering that "word-by-word" convention, and another prepared in 1980 that is "letter-by-letter". A 1998 book attributes the changes to the rules to computer informatics, and notes the Mac/Mc change as its first example. 1982's "Scottish Roots", a guide for family history researchers, warns that older Scottish records do not in fact follow this convention, unlike contemporary telephone directories. A 2001 book of "New York Times" theatre reviews sorts Mc names as if spelled Mac. A 2002 official document for the State of Vermont recommends explicitly no special treatment for Mac and Mc.