Mcnicholls — Son of Nicholas

McNicholls comes from Mac Niocaill, ‘son of Nicholas’, the saint's name taken into Irish and then made a patronymic. The double l is the Irish spelling — Scotland kept a single one — and the final s is an English addition, tacked on by clerks who pluralised what they did not recognise. The family belong to Derry and Tyrone.

Not to be confused with the Mayo McNicholases, who reached a near-identical spelling by an entirely separate road.

Irish form: Mac Niocaill