Names heard around the world.

Thanks in part to the Internet, genealogy is big business nowadays and it can be fascinating to see how one particular Scottish name can yield rich results. If, for instance, you type the name 'Murray' into Google, you find yourself with over 70 million results!

Murray is a variation of the word 'Moray' (meaning 'sea settlement') and the name originally denoted someone from the district on the south shore of the Moray Firth. The Murray spelling is no longer used for the geographical area but it became the commonest form of the surname, especially among Scottish emigrants, to the extent that the surname Murray is now much more common than the original Moray.

The Motto for Murray – "Imperio" – dates back to the 12th century, when Flemish lords crossed the North Sea and established themselves in Scotland. Among them was a leader called Freskin. It is thought that either Freskin or his son William intermarried with the ancient royal house of Moray and the Moray/Murray name went on to be intimately associated with some of the great episodes and figures in Scottish history: like Sir Andrew Moray, who led the Scots in 1297 in their first uprising against the English conquerors, alongside Sir William Wallace, hero of "Braveheart". He was mortally wounded while winning his famous victory at Stirling Bridge.

His son, too – by now Andrew Murray – was also a brilliant general and as Lord of Bothwell, he married Christian Bruce, a sister of King Robert the Bruce. He was a prisoner in England at the time of the Battle of Halidon Hill but obtained his freedom in time to march to the relief of his wife, who was bravely defending Kildrummy Castle. In March 1337, he heroically recaptured Bothwell Castle, his ancestral home, from the English. Bothwell Castle remained with the Murrays until the 1600s.

Valour is something in which the Murray Clan has long taken pride. The clan badge depicts a warrior figure holding a sword in the right hand and a key in the left while the motto reads "Furth, Fortune, and Fill the Fetters", which roughly translates as "go forth against your enemies, have good fortune, and return with booty"! An older Clan badge depicts a mermaid holding a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other. The motto that appears with this version is "Tout pret", which is Old French for "Quite ready".

Since 1703, the Murray's chiefs have been Dukes of Atholl and for a time in the 18th century the Murray Dukes were also Sovereign Lords of the Isle of Man, with their own coinage and parliament, The House of Keys. The 1st Duke's younger son, Lord George Murray, was the brilliant Jacobite general responsible for the highlander's astonishing successes throughout the greater part of the 1745 uprising. Lord George's last direct descendent George Murray, the 10th Duke of Atholl, died in February 1996. Known as Wee Iain, he attended both Eton College and Oxford University and was an acknowledged expert on forestry. In addition, he resurrected the Atholl Highlanders, the ceremonial private army of the Dukedom.

However, today the Murray name has spread far around the world and is prominent in the upper reaches of many professions.

The American actor Bill Murray – star of Ghostbusters, Lost in Translation and Groundhog Day – can trace his roots back to Scotland via Ulster.

Al Murray – aka award-winning comedian The Pub Landlord – was born in Buckinghamshire, the son of senior army officer Lt. Col. Ingram Bernard Hay Murray. He won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1999, after being nominated in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Then there's Ruby Murray, the popular Northern Irish singer of the 1950s and 60s, whose name lives on, forever enshrined in cockney rhyming slang as shorthand for a curry! – although often simply shortened to 'a Ruby'!

Another Murray was recently voted the funniest man who ever lived. Scots comic Chic Murray, famous for his stern-faced delivery and droll one-liners, sadly died in 1985, but twenty years later he was voted 'the comedian's comedian' in a poll of top comics. He is perhaps best remembered for his performance as the headmaster in the 1980 Scottish hit film Gregory's Girl.

In sports the name Murray leads us quickly to running star Yvonne Murray. Born in 1964 in Musselburgh, Murray came to attention when she won the bronze medal for the 3000 metres at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Her ultimate success came in 1990 with a gold medal in the European Championships. She was awarded an MBE in 1990 and was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.

Talking of sporting Murrays – who could fail to mention Andy Murray – the young Scottish tennis player who has supercharged British tennis. Murray catapulted himself into the world top ten rankings while he was still a teenager and has become arguably the first home grown tennis star in living memory with a real shot at winning a major tournament. He has said that he will compete in the summer Olympics – presumably wearing his trademark saltire cap.

In literature there is the great lexicographer Sir James Murray. Born in the village of Denholm in the Scottish Borders, Murray was a precocious child with a voracious appetite for learning. In 1879 Murray was invited to edit a new dictionary of the English language, to replace Johnson's and to capture all the words then extant in the English-speaking world.

It would be a massive project, which required somebody with Murray's knowledge and single-minded determination. It was expected to take ten years to complete and be some 7,000 pages long, in four volumes. In fact, when the final results were published in 1928, it ran to twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined and 1,827,306 citations employed to illustrate their meanings. This was the world-famous Oxford English Dictionary and an English dictionary project which remains unrivalled in the publishing world. Murray most certainly did not see himself as a "harmless drudge".

More recently in the world of books the best-selling novelist in history, JK Rowling – who, of course, wrote her first Harry Potter book in the cafes of Edinburgh – became a Murray when she married Scottish anaesthetist and GP, Dr. Neil Murray (a Glasgow University graduate) in 2001.

The Murray name has also found its way onto the map in a quite literal sense! There is a Murray in Kentucky USA: a small town of 15,000 inhabitants that celebrates its connection to Scotland with an annual Highland Festival. One of Australia's most famous rivers is the Murray, one of the world's longest, down which you can still take a paddle steamer cruise. Indeed, some of the earliest boats on the river were specially built in Scotland. Then there's the town of Murray Bridge in Australia. Located 80km outside Adelaide and with a population of just 18,000 it's probably the furthest flung example of just how far the Murray name has travelled since its origins on the banks of the Moray Firth over 800 years ago. Unless, that is, you include the ship "Morayshire" which carried all the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, to their new home on Norfolk Island off Australia!

So, whether your name is Murray, or Robertson or MacDonald, or any one of scores of names with links to 'the old country', why not log on and start tracing your own connections to Scotland? You never know where they'll take you.