Mc, Mac, M, and Ma: Eternal Confusion

There are lots of sites on the internet that deal with this, some good, some bad, but pretty much they all say the same thing.

The hightlights:

It's all the same. "Mac" was the original version, and everything else (with a few exceptions, of course, to confuse things further) are just abbreviated forms of "Mac".
It wasn't until 1755 A.D. when The Dictionary of the English Language was written by Samuel Johnson which brought standardized spelling to the English Language. The name "Shakespeare" wasn't consistantly spelled the same way. Even the epitaph on the grave of William Shakespeare spells "friend" as "frend".
The idea that "Mac" was Scottish and "Mc" is Irish is wrong.

A few sites on the subject:

A Blog by someone with the name MacVay

A page which is a bit fanatical about Mc vs M^c

ScottishHistory.com

When Is a "Mc" a "Mac"? This site talks in a rather round-about way that bothers me but I do enjoy the quote "Today most people can spell their own names, but that was not always the case."