McFayden Last Name: Meaning and Heraldic Roots

There is no single McFayden family crest for every bearer. Herald Lab researches the arms historically associated with the name and explains whose they were.

Meaning of the name

Ancestors listed as McFayden are often found as McFadden a generation earlier. Read literally, McFayden points to “The son of little Pad, a pet form of Patrick (noble or patrician)”.

McFayden writes “y” in place of the “d” found in McFadden, a typical scribal difference. Regional accents shaped spellings long before dictionaries fixed them. Other spellings include McFaden, McFadyen and MacFadyen. The Census Bureau's 2010 surname file lists McFayden with 459 bearers, at rank 46,404.

Want more than a summary? See the McFayden family name pack.