McAllen (surname) McAllen (surname) McAllen is an Scots Gaelic surname, originating from "MacAllen" in Scotland. Historically, the name has migrated to Ireland, where the prefix of the name has been commonly transposed with "Mc". The first recorded arrivals to Ireland bearing this name came in the 15th century to County Donegal, with the arrival of Gallowglas military families to support the Irish nobility of the north. McAllen is derivative of "Ó h-Ailín" or "Ailin", which in Scottish Gaelic means both "little rock" and "harmony", and with the Mc prefix meaning "son of". Variant spellings include McAlan, McAllan, etc. The surname McAllen has
Mac and Mc together Mac and Mc together A convention of sorting names with the Scottish and Irish patronymic prefixes Mac and Mc together persists in library science and archival practice. An example is from the Archives at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It is also applied in areas such as voter registration, where Mac and Mc names may be sorted together in a listing. Technically this is a convention in collation. On the other hand, ASCII is a computer standard and its corresponding sorting is gradually replacing this exception to ordinary alphabetisation. Rules once used for filing have been