Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish and northern Irish : reduced form of McCart.
- English : from Middle English cart(e) ‘cart’ (from Old English cræt, Old Norse kartr), hence a metonymic occupational name for a carter or cartwright.
- French : from Old Occitan cart, a variant of quart, a term which in the Middle Ages denoted a tax levied on wine; hence possibly a metonymic occupational name for a tax collector.