Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[boulderer]

Hello,

there's two problems bothering me for a long time,

the first one is,

why some given names like those listing below

have a feature that the third letter is also capitalized?

Raef LaFrentz
Rashad McCants
Jack McClinton
Taj McCullough
Antonio McDyess
JaVale McGee
Tracy McGrady
Dominic McGuire
Keith McLeod
Gerry McNamara
Jerel McNeal
Josh McRoberts
Brian McCann
Kyle McClellan
Mike McCoy
Bob McCrory
Andrew McCutchen
Daniel McCutchen
John McDonald
Casey McGehee
Dustin McGowan
Nate McLouth
Matt LaPorta
Adam LaRoche
Andy LaRoche
Jason LaRue

the second one is,

why there's a ' after O and the following letter is also capitalized?

Darren O'Day
Eric O'Flaherty
Patrick O'Bryant
Jermaine O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal

thank you for your help! ^^

[pugachevV]

These are English names that were originally of a foreign origin.
Mac and Mc and O' are patronymic prefixes to many Scots and Irish names.
La is a French word meaning the.
La Rue, for example, means, the street.
Probably, originally it was de la Rue. It means from the street. As the name was anglicized the "de" was dropped. (Perhaps because the French and English were almost constantly at war in the Middle Ages).
In ancient times many people were named after the place where they lived, or after their fathers.