MACDUFF (Mac Dubh)

MACDUFF (Mac Dubh)

MACDUFF (Mac Dubh)

“Macduff is certainly a common enough Gaelic name, Mac Dubh — son of the black man”

SOURCE;

(Peter Berresford Ellis, “Macbeth: High King of Scotland, 1040-57”)

“As Niger and Rufus were names of families amongst the Romans, from the colour and complexion of men, so it seems Duff was, from the swarthy and black colour of those of the tribe, or clan of Macduff”

SOURCES;

(James MacVeigh, “Dal-Mac”; 1889)

(Robert Sibbald, “The History, Ancient and Modern, of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross: With the Description of Both, and of the Firths of Forth and Tay, and the Islands in Them … with an Account of the Natural Products of the Land and Waters”; 1710)

The surname MacDuff originates from Scotland and is derived from the Gaelic “Mac Dubh,” meaning “son of the black.”

The supreme ruler of Alban during one portion of the tenth century was, we have been told, Kenneth (or Cinæd) alias “Niger” or “Dubh”—“The Black”

“He seems to have reigned for some years over “white” provinces, as well as those inhabited by people of his own color; but he is particularized as “The Black,—of the three black divisions”

The posterity of this powerful black king, of the tenth century, became known to Gaelic speaking people as Maga Dubh (shortened into Mac Duff) or “the clan of The Black”, which race was for a long time paramount in the kingdom of Fibh (Fife)—itself, in all probability, one of “the three black divisions”

So lately as the tenth century three of these provinces were wholly “black;” and the supreme ruler of these became, for a time, the paramount king of Transmarine Scotland: being known to history as Kenneth, Cin-aed, Kennedy, Niger, Dubh, or The Black, “of the three black divisions.”

A son, however, of the dispossessed Kenneth, or Dubh, known too as Kenneth (Mac Dubh), regained the kingship in the year 997, reigning until 1004…

He is termed “the Donn, or brown”

Donn implies a lighter shade than Dubh—being in fact Dun or Tawny…

Clan MacDuff (Clann Dhubh) was one of the most powerful and prestigious clans in medieval Scotland…

The MacDuffs claimed descent from Dubh, King of Alba (Scotland) in the 10th century…

The clan is strongly associated with the Earls of Fife, who were historically the most senior noble family in Scotland after the royal house…

They had the hereditary right to crown the Kings of Scotland, making them second only to the royal family in status…