McCabe (surname) 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 Aba", meaning "son of the Abbot". If Harrison is to be believed then the surname would have a similar etymology as the surnames
Surname as well as "FitzWilliam" or "Fitzwilliam". Irish surnames are the oldest surnames in Europe. The common prefixes "Ó" and "Mac" can be spelled with the prefix as a separate word, yielding "Ó Briain" or "Mac Millan" as well as the anglicized "O'Brien" and "MacMillan" or "Macmillan". In the United States, 1,712 surnames cover 50% of the population, and about 1% of the population has the surname Smith, which is also the most frequent English name and an occupational name ("metal worker"), a contraction, for instance, of blacksmith or other metalsmiths. Several American surnames are a result of corruptions or phonetic