Clancy

Variations – Clanchey, Clanchy, Clancle, Clinch, Glancy, DeClancy
Racial Origin – Irish
Source – A given name

Would you recognize “MacFlanchaidhe” as the same name as Clancy? Most people wouldn’t. Yet it is the same name.
One form, of course, is thee modern Anglicized and considerably shortened form, and the other is the ancient clan name which until the spread of Anglo-Norman, or English power in Ireland that broke up the clan structure of that population, dominated the country around Dartry, in County Monoghan.
The “MacFianchaidhe” was an ancient clan, its name antedating by several centuries the formation of family names in England. The year 705 A.D. is as close an approximation as can be made of the date when the clan was founded.
It derives its name from the given name of the chieftain, “Flanchaidh,” which name is generally supposed to have been derived from the two Celtic words “flan” and “caidh.” With meanings of “red complexioned” and “chaste,” qualifications which has parents undoubtedly observed and hope for in him.
Such a name as MacFianchaidhe, however, is a good bit of a strain on an English-speaking tongue and it was quite natural in the Anglicizing of the name that the “f” became suppressed and eliminated from pronunciation, leaving the name in some form as “MacLanchy.” The “c” swinging over from the prefix to the name itself gives the basis for the modern forms after the elimination of the “mac.”