Probably just simple ease of dropping a letter or phonetic spelling. My own McLeod was originally Mac.
Or more correctly MhicLeoid as the original Gaelic. Mac is a transliteration to the germanic english.

Interesting thing of Gaelic is that the language has genders. A female would speak her name as Nhic or Nic while a male would say his name as Mhic. The Scottish Nichols surname comes from the former usage.

And then there are multiple events such as the Daunting of the Isles by the Scottish crown against the MacDonald Lord of the Isles, clan Ranald. And the later Flight of the Earls from Ireland plus the second son issue of the second sons having to go abroad, usually military or mercenary, to make their fortune that seeded Scots and Irish all across the Continent of Europe.
Heck, some of Napolean's Marshalls were Irish.

Funny thing about the Flight of the Earls. Most of those "irish" earls were Normans fleeing the Tudors. What goes around comes around I guess.

BTW, earl in this case stems from the Norse jarl.

The most obvious "french" connection is the original roman name for region that would become France, gaul.

They were all celtic tribes from the celt homelands north of the Alps west to British Isles and east through Macedonia, the Balkans and Anatolia.

France as we know it today didn't get it's start until the Franks pushed aside the Celts during the Migration Period. Leading to Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire which would later split into the Frankish (romance speakers) and Allemanic (germanic speakers) which in turn gave us quite a bit of history in our own recent memory.

Their is need for some study on the question of Heraldry here. I started the process two decades ago finished the design even commissioned the drawing, then life got in the way and I did not submit it for qualification. The whole process can take about 5 years, don't know if I have that much time left now. But even if completed only my immediate family would be able to wear it.

You can't just google your name and claim something that some con artist wants to sell you.

Looking at this idea of researching your heritage, as an outsider. I wonder how far do you go back before the waters get muddied so much, that any form of accuracy gets lost along the way. Obviously things are different for us, in this part of the world, where we see ourselves as Irish. The Scottish, see themselves as Scottish, etc, and so don't have the interest or want to know if there are any other blood in our heritage. If their was norse blood in our family lines, then I'm not norse . I'm Irish. The norse became Irish, and not the other way around.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking anyone here. Just how we see things from here.

I think you misspelled Naise! Lol, just goofin

Only 3% Irish DNA linked through my 7th Great Grandfather Col. Morgan Morgan founding Morgantown and his cabin is a historical landmark on Bunker Hill. His son and my 6th Great Grandfather was frontiersman David Morgan "The Great Indian Fighter who was Daniel Boones Cousin.

Last names McDowell and apparently I'm like 20 %on of thoses

Heard last night they invented American cheese, nachos, egg rolls, Budweiser and pizza. God bless the Irish

Boco, I am living in the next county over from Laoise. Im about a twenty minute drive from the Laoise border.

Eddie43, interesting to hear from a trapper in Ireland. Thanks for posting. Please do so more often.
Case.