Magee, and its variants McGee, MacGee etc., come from the Gaelic Mac or Mag Aodha, from Aodh (anglicised "Hugh"), a very popular personal name meaning "fire", which also gave rise to a large number of other surnames, including Hays, Hughes, McHugh, and McCoy. The form "Magee" reflects the pronunciation of Ulster and Scottish Gaelic, with "Mag-" most common in the east of the province, and "Mac-" in the west; Ulster is the area where the name is most common by far. It can be of either Scottish or Irish origin. Three Irish families of the name are recorded: in the area now on the borders of counties Donegal and Tyrone, in the territory around Islandmagee on the coast of Antrim, and in Fermanagh, where they descend from Aodh, great-grandson of Donn Carrach Maguire, the first Maguire ruler of that region. The remainder of the Ulster Magees are descended from seventeenth-century settlers from Scotland, where the surname is most common in Dumfries, in Ayrshire and in Galloway. In Co. Cavan, Mag Aodha has also sometimes, strangely, been anglicised as "Wynne", from a mistaken resemblance to gaoth, "wind".