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Most Scottish surnames, like so many others in the world, are from the following sources:

 From the father (patronymics – see below).

 From the occupation (metonymics), such as Mac an t-Saoir, ‘son of the carpenter’, Anglicized as MacIntyre.

 From nicknames (sobriquets), such as Cameron, from cam shron, ‘crooked nose’, the nickname of a clan chief of unknown origin.

 From places. Some families named from their landholdings have earlier, known ancestry, whilst others come into our ken already identified by their place of residence, and no more, such as:Brodie: from Brodie (Brothac) in Moray (probably Pictish)Colquhoun: from the Barony of Colquhoun, Dumbartonshire, descended from Humphrey de KilpatrickErskine: from the Barony of Erskine, RenfrewForbes: from Forbes, AberdeenInnes: from Innes, Moray, descended from one Berowald in 1160Menzies: from ‘Meyners’, a Lowland surname borne by a family thought to be of Gaelic originUrquhart from Urquhart on the Cromarty Firth.

An extract from The Origin of Surnames and Some Pedigrees, a two-volume scrapbook deposited at the Society of Genealogists, compiled from entries in The Weekly Scotsman (courtesy of the SoG).