English homophones
MacDonald/McDonald
"McDonald" (#10,083 written frequency) beats "MacDonald" (#11,413) in this 2-word /məkˈdɒnəld/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /məkˈdɒnəld/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "McDonald" leads at #10,083, with "MacDonald" trailing at #11,413.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "MacDonald" is 9 letters, "McDonald" is 8; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across MacDonald, McDonald: acdlmno. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
MacDonald
9 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVCCVCVCC
Inventory acdlmno · no private letters vs siblings
McDonald
8 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCCVCVCC
Inventory acdlmno · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "MacDonald" when you mean: A surname from Scottish Gaelic common in Scotland.
- Write "McDonald" when you mean: A surname from Scottish Gaelic.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (MacDonald, McDonald). Here's where to go from here.
- "McDonald" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #10,083 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: meager · meagre. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "MacDonald, McDonald" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.