Different spellings of the name

One of the most difficult things in genealogy is getting to understand the context of our ancestors' lives. It is all too easy to make false assumptions by applying modern ways of thinking to problems in the past. One example of this is the spelling of surnames. Our surname has been spelled in a bewildering variety of forms over the last few centuries. If we take the broader Doris family from all over the north of Ireland, we find Doris, Dooris, Douris, Dourish, Doorish, Dooriess, Doriss, Duris, Durish, Douross, Duross, O'Daris, O'Dowrish, O'Dorris. Within the Donegal family alone, we find Doris, Dorris, Doran, Dorrans, Dorans, Dorrens, McEldore, McIldore, in 19th. and 20th. century records. Why is there such a variety?

We are used to living in a literate, English-speaking society. We can read official communications and when we go to the registrar's office, the registrar speaks the same language as we do. It was not like that for our ancestors. Remember that most of our ancestors were illiterate, though many of them were highly educated - they knew hundreds of songs, stories and poems off by heart and were steeped in ancient traditions, even though they couldn't read or write. They were also primarily Irish speaking and the officials they dealt with were English speaking. They were not in a position (in the 19th. century, anyway) to correct the clerks when they wrote what they thought they heard rather than what the person really said.

In many cases, the name was confused with other names which were common or familiar in the area. Thus Doris became Doran in Ireland. In Scotland, where the name Dorrans is found among native Scots of Protestant background, Doris individuals often became Dorrans or Dorans in records. In land records, the names McEldore or McIldore were sometimes used, which seems to be a mistake for a Gaelic form of Dyer.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Doris name is the extent to which widely dispersed families ended up settling for the version Doris or Dorris, abandoning versions like Doorish and Douris, which are far less common. Why did this happen? Was it because it had a Classical, "educated" feel to it? Was it because it was easy to spell? Were these families sporadically in contact with each other? It is an interesting question.