De-Anglicisation of Names

[MacWage]

Here is an interesting link to a surname profiler that shows the geographical distribution of surnames in two censuses of England, Scotland and Wales in the years 1881 and 1998. http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/Surnames.aspx

I ran Wage but found nothing. There must have been at least 100 individuals with a surname in the 1998 Electoral Register for results. The profiler gave the name Wager instead. In 1881 it was most common in southeast England, near the Welsh border and in the Midlands (I think. My British geography isn't the best.)

"Latta" is shown to have been most common in 1881 a bit north of the border, around Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Of course, the only way to really know the origin of a name is through genealogical research, one generation at a time, starting with one's parents and working backward.

If Wages, Wagers, or Wager are ran on the 2 or 3 I've tried, it us in northwest England/Wales/Southwest Scotland area (roughly Liverpool./Manchester) and VERY small numbers in mid-late 1800s and then London area in late 1900s. The VERY few earlier references (mostly court) are to Edinburgh (a mid 1700s arrest and release), Sterling, and the northern borders area. There is a fast move south in VERY small numbers (leading some to speculate they were fleeing something). One lists the 25,000 most common names in Britain (further ones are probably mis-writes/typos) and Wages and Wagers were both at the last half of the 24,000s. Let's say it AIN"T common.

slohairt, thanks for ALL your help to SO many of us.
I called my cousin and ran it past him and he was VERY interested. ALL our family people INSIST we are Irish/Scotch-Irish/Scots, though I have NEVER seen any derivation that makes any sense. Wages is SO rare, which would be unexpected for an occupational name or laborer based name. As Mac Uais (pronounced MAC OO-ISH) is also EXTEMELY rare, and anglocised to Wage/MacWage (or maybe Wages), it JUST might have more beihind it than coincidence. About the largest cluster of Wages in the US is in Northeast Atlanta, Georgia and are virtually ALL descended from 1 man (Joel Wages, who seems to come out of nowhere) OR his brother, though I have not found much on his descendants and almost all claim Joel. THAT seems to be the largest cluster in the world and a sizable portion of ALL Wages.
Who knows, I might have "readopted" the old version of my own name by ACIDENT!!!

Thanks again,

(and I appologize to others and the moderators for my over-use of this thread).