Mcmurray

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in northern Alberta, Canada, centered on the oil sands industry ; a family name borne by people of Scottish or Irish descent
2. A community in the Canadian province of Alberta tied to oil sands extraction ; a hereditary surname found among people of Scottish or Irish ancestry
3. An urban settlement in northern Alberta, Canada, built around the oil sands ; a last name carried by various individuals in the English-speaking world

Etymology: "McMurray" is a patronymic surname, and its first part is the Gaelic "mac," meaning "son of." The rest comes from the personal name Muireadhach, a name common in medieval Ireland and Scotland. Its meaning is usually glossed as something like "sea-warrior" or "mariner," though that etymology is debated. The surname thus means "son of Muireadhach," and it appears in both Scottish and Irish families, often in Anglicized spellings such as "Murray" or "Murry" that dropped the "Mac" over time. Place names like Fort McMurray in Alberta take their name from a person who carried the surname, not from the surname's own meaning.