McCabe (surname) most common surname, and "MacCabe" was ranked 43,031st. For the 2000 United States Census neither surname ranked among the top 1,000 most common surnames. McCabe (surname) The surnames McCabe and MacCabe are Scottish and Irish surnames. They are Anglicisations of the Gaelic Mac Cába, a patronymic name meaning "son of "Cába"". The nickname or personal name "Cába" is of uncertain origin. The surname can be written in modern Scottish Gaelic as MacCàba and MacCaibe. Patrick Woulfe considered that the surname was possibly derived from a nickname, meaning "a cap", or "hood". Henry Harrison suggested the name was from the Gaelic
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.