Millan /Mullen/Mellon/Mullin

This name comes from MacMillans/McMellons etc. who have dropped the Mac/Mc - a process that most often happened when M'millans settled outside of Scotland. There is however at least one example of it occurring in a family recorded in the Campbeltown parish register, and the arms in the name of Millan shown above, which obviously relate to a family of M'millan descent, were registered in Scotland (though to whom is not presently known). Buchanan Macmillan from Glenurquhart, a cousin of Archibald of Murlagan and Allan of Glenpean, went to London and there became Printer to king George IV in 1821. Though he was married in St.Pancras in 1798 and had his will probated in England in 1832, in both cases as "McMillan", he apparently used the name "Millan" in some at least of his professional dealings. In his early days in London there was another Millan in the book business whose origins are at present unknown, but who was apparently fairly famous in literary circles. John Millan died in 1784 at the age of about 84. He was a bookseller and publisher who was also said to have had a very fine collection of "natural curiosities". A poet called Dell wrote of him:

Millan, deserving of the warmest praise,
As full of worth and virtue as of days,
Brave, open, generous 'tis in him we find
A solid judgement and a taste refined.

In the north of England the process of having the Mac/Mc dropped can be observed happening in the 1740s amongst a group of M'millans who settled in the parish of Millom in Cumberland. Most of the entries in the Parish Register use the names Mellan/Mellon/Millon, starting with the burial in 1741 of "Henry Mellon, a stranger", and the christening the following year of "William, son of Robert Mellon, a Scotchman, at Moor". The Scotchman's fourth son born at Moor, in 1749, was "Dennis Millon", and in 1769 his marriage to Elizabeth Walton as "Dennis McMellan", was witnessed by "William McMelin" - probably the brother born in 1742. William himself was married in 1777, as "Mellan", to Eleanor Picthall; and his mother Frances (surname unknown), wife of "Robert Mellon", died in 1777 at Moor. The patriarch of the clan himself died in 1801 at the age of 94 in the village of Haverigg (again as "Robert Mellon"), which is also where William's wife died in 1807 as "Eleanor Mellon".

In the USA the name "Mellon" is attached to one of the wealthiest families in the country, and to a university named for them. The founder of this family's fortunes was Judge Thomas Mellon who was born in 1816, the year in which his grandfather emigrated to Westmorland Co., PA, from Castletown in Northern Ireland. The family in Ireland trace themselves back to an Archibald Mellon who is said to have come from Scotland with his wife Elizabeth to settle near Newton Stewart, Co.Tyrone, before buying Castletown. Having come from Scotland these "Mellons" are also almost certainly M'millans in origin - and, if they could afford to buy a farm in 17th century Ulster, they must have been well-connected clanspeople too [see Thomas Mellon, Thomas Mellon and His Times, Pittsburgh, 1885].

Millan/Mellon/Mullan families from the south of Ireland are more likely in origin to have been O'Millans, O'Mellons, O'Mullans etc. The stem of these names is often, but not always, the same as that of MacMillan; but even when that is the case not many of these families would have belonged to the same kindred as the MacMillans since these were quite common names in Ireland.

An article relating to the sept of Millan in Clan MacMillan International Magazine.

Millans/Mellons | Issue 2, May/June 2004