Alexander
Alexander—MAC ALSANDAIR.—The name Alexander is derived from a branch of the McAlister Clan, in the first case from Alexander McAllister, brother of Angus McAllister, the ancestor of the McAllisters of Loupe, who was son of Alexander MacAllister, Laird of Lochaber. This Alexander settled in the district of Menstrie, in Stirling Co., a part of the Campbell country. Some of this sept still retain the older anglicised forms of the name, as McAlshinder, McElshunder, M'Calshender, and M'Kelshenter respectively, in the districts of Banbridge, Larne, and Ballymena, in the North and East of Ulster. It has been, like many other Scottish names of Gaelic origin, anglicised Alexander in Southern Scotland for over three hundred years, the same anglicising influence occurring on the borders of the English Pale in Ireland, the South-Eastern Counties of Scotland being the English Pale of that country.