McAdam Name Meaning, Origin and Heraldry

A coat of arms belongs to a particular family line rather than to everyone named McAdam, so the heraldry linked to McAdams is a starting point, not an automatic right.

Meaning of the name

The same name, two spellings: McAdam and McAdams. Its meaning, shared with McAdams, is “The son of Adam (red earth)”.

Without the “s” of McAdams, McAdam is a simpler written form of the same name. Census takers and immigration officers often wrote what they heard. Related forms: MacAdam and MacAdams. In the 2010 US Census, 2,117 Americans gave McAdam as their last name (rank 14,184). That is enough to place it in the top 25,000 American surnames.

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