McGuffin and Bogey

[Victor Steinbok]

I just finished reviewing the first 1000 of 6800 GB raw hits between
1900 and 1940 and the majority of citations are for US sources. There is
a small sample of Irish and Northern Irish sources, but nothing
obviously Scottish. (E.g., Samuel McGuffing, MP, at least 1918-1921)
This number does include, however, Maguffin and MacGuffin as well.

BTW, the majority of hits are for US legal cases (as mentioned
previously) and for genealogies. Very few are fiction or historical writing.

      VS-)

On 10/30/2010 4:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> According to this site http://names.mongabay.com/data/surnames_Mc.htm ,
> "McGuffin" is ranked at 13,980 in frequency among U.S. surnames, with Smith
> and Johnson and numners one and two respectively. ("MacGuffin" is
> not listed.)  There were allegedly fewer than 2000 McGuffins in the United
> States at the time of the 2000 census, or only .73 per 1000 inhabitants.
>
> Presumably the incidence is rather higher in Scotland.
>
> "Magoffin" is even less common: 83,965th in rank, with only 208
> representives. "McGoffin" is at 123,314, with 129 representatives.
> ("Maguffin" is not listed.)
>
> JL

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