Which comes first, Mc or Ma as in McArthur or Martinez?

Question

Which comes first, Mc or Ma as in McArthur or Martinez?

Answer 1

Telephone book order is the norm...Ma, before Mc A ( regardless).

Answer 2

You mean alphabetically?

Ma.

I think you're too young to be on YA.

Answer 3

Ma before Mc

Answer 4

Martinez

Answer 5

Ma,.....as in Martinez.....!!

Answer 6

It depends on what method of alphabetizing is being used. When I first started working (many eons ago), some filing systems filed "Mc" and "Mac" together, i.e. MacArthur, McArthur, MacBirney, McCann, Martinez ... but that method seems to have disappeared over the course of the 1960s.

Answer 7

Alphabetically it depends who's doing the filing. When I was proofreading for a magazine Mc came before Ma. In the phone book Martinez comes before McArthur. I think the reasoning behind the Mc coming before Ma in the instances when it does is along the line of placing numbers before letters in an alphanumeric system. In my phone book:

S & F comes before S F and St. James is listed Saget and Sal as if it were written out as Saint. It depends who is in charge of alphabetizing.