McAllister (surname) McAllister (surname) McAllister is a surname from Scotland and Ireland that originates from the Gaelic name Mac Alasdair, meaning son of God. Alasdair is the Gaelic form of the first name Alexander. The Mc Alisters for the greater part owe their ancestry to the Scottish clan of the Mac Donalds. The name is derived from the personal name Alexander. The Mc Alisters arrived in Ulster as Gallowglasses at the invitation of the MacDonnell's. Today the greatest numbers of the name are to be found in counties Antrim, Londonderry, Fermanagh, and Dublin, otherwise the name is widely dispersed. The McAllister surname
Mac and Mc together A 2007 book in its tenth edition states that "most library catalogs" sort Mac and Mc names as if spelled M-a-c. Among the guides which generally recommend separating Mac and Mc so that names will be sorted as they are spelled are ISO 999, The Chicago Manual of Style, "Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders", "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage", and "The SBL Handbook of Style". 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