McCool
An Irish surname usually taken as a form of Mac Uidhrin/Mac Cumhaill tradition or, in some later explanations, as a Gaelic nickname name based on “cool” or “hinder part.”
The #4,856 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 42,533 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McCool is an Anglicized Irish surname, most often treated as a rendering of a Gaelic patronymic beginning Mac-, meaning “son of.” The historical excerpts link it with forms such as Mac Cuill/Mac Cumhaill and related spellings, which suggests an old Irish family-name tradition rather than an English compound. One later folk-style explanation in the sources tries to analyze it from Gaelic words for “hinder part” or “back,” but that kind of interpretation is much less secure than the patronymic reading.
History
The surname appears in Irish records in several spellings, including MacCool, Mac Cole, and Cole, reflecting the way Irish names were often simplified or reshaped in English. In North America it has been borne by Irish-descended families and survives today as a relatively uncommon surname. Older reference works sometimes gave speculative or mutually inconsistent explanations, so the exact medieval source-form is not fully settled from these excerpts alone.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The name is close enough to other Irish surnames beginning Mac-Coil/Cuill that 19th-century writers sometimes folded several different names together under one umbrella spelling.
From the historical record
“ITlAC "OubJAill, MacCool, Mac Cole, Coole, Cole, Coyle, Coiles, etc. tllAC *Otjb|iAT)Ain, Doordan, Dordan.”
— Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish names and surnames