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Different but related origins can be  traced for  the name Cairney  or  Cairnie  which from  the 15th century
onwards was established  in  several  parts  of  Scotland and also Ireland.  

  • There are  the  Cairneys  or  Cairnies of Perthshire who  held  lands  around  Cairnie  in  Perthshire in the
    latter Middle Ages and after.  Sometimes the name is  Carnie or Cairny.  These Cairneys are  descendants  
    of Sir John de Ross,  a son of the  Earl  of Ross  (Gaelic  surname: O Beolain),who received a charter for
    lands in Perthshire, and took  the  name of Cairney from his lands, spread between Cairdeney (pronounce
    as 'Cairney') near Dunkeld and Cairnie in Glenalmond.  His son, Robert Cairney,  was  bishop of Dunkeld
    and Iona during the late 14th and early 15th centuries.  Besides this, they were further linked with the Celtic
    Church in Scotland by a 14th century marriage with the heiress of the hereditary abbots of Dull, an ancient
    Celtic abbey in the Dunkeld area.  These abbots were heads of the sept of MacNair (Gaelic Mac an oirgh:
    the son of the heir of the abbot).  Some of this family of Cairneys settled in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, so the
    Cairnys or Carneys there in the 17th century may be related.   More anciently, these O'Beolains of Ross
    were co-arbs of Applecross Abbey in Ross.  Another family of O'Beollains were, during  the same period,
    erenachs of the Columban Church at Drumcliffe in Sligo.   
The other origin of the name in Scotland is also Celtic, these Cairneys take their name from the Gaelic
patronymic O Cearnaigh or Mac Cearnaigh.  Early Scots versions of this name are MacCairney and O'Kairney.  
The name appears in Scotland in the early sixteenth century and is  well-represented in Scotland by the end of the
eighteenth century.

  • Most of these O Cearnaigh Cairneys were of a family originally linked with the Celtic Church as coarbs
    (hereditary abbots) and errenachs (hereditary priests or stewards of churches and church properties) in
    Derry.  Derry was the chief Columban foundation at the time, in the 12th and 13th centuries. Gilchrist
    O'Kearney was made Co-arb of Columba (Colm Cille) and Abbot of Derry 'by the chiefs and clergy of the
    north of Ireland' in 1198, and exercised influence over Iona.  He was later made Bishop of Connor (Antrim)
    and died in 1209;  his death was recorded in the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of the Four Masters.
    Cairneys, Kearneys and Carneys  in Donegal (particularly Inishowen) and in Derry and Tyrone belong to this
    sept, associated with both the Kindred of St. Columba (Colm Cille) and with the O'Neills and MacNeills.  At
    times they enjoyed the special protection of The O'Donnell, the chief of the Kindred of St. Columba (Colm
    Cille).  In Scotland the name has universally become 'Cairney' or 'Cairnie'.

  • There are also a few Cairneys who originate in Mayo/Sligo in the greater barony of Leyney (South
    Sligo/North Mayo in Connacht) some of whom later came to Glasgow and took the Scottish form of the
    name.   They may perhaps be found in south Donegal, around Donegal Town, where a family of Cairneys
    lived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and up to 1921, but these may also be a branch of the
    Inishowen/Derry sept, where the Scots spelling 'Cairney' is also extant during the eighteenth century.  Of
    the Sligo-connected Cairneys: accocording to the Annals of the Four Masters, Murtough O’Kearney
    (Muircheartach O Cearnaigh) of Sligo, Chief Lector of the Irish, died at the monastery of Clonmacnoise
    (Clúain mic Nois) in 1106.   Carbery  and David O'Kearney (Cairbre and Daibhí O Cearnaigh),
    professional scribes, copied  medical books for the MacDonalds of the Isles (1563), while Sean O
    Cearnaigh, also from Sligo, and eventually Treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin,  produced the
    first printed book in Irish (1571) and translated the New Testament from Greek (1602), which eventually
    became part of the first Gaelic Bible in the Highlands (1685).  These Sligo Cairneys (O Cearnaigh) were
    originally from the Fir Ceara tribe, a branch of the Ui Fiachrach of Sligo and North Mayo, descended from
    a brother of Niall, ancestor of the Ui Neill.  

  • Roscommon produced a family of O Ceithearnaigh (barons of Ciarraighe), and some of their
    descendants came to Scotland and had their name changed from the English version  of, in this case,  
    'Keherny' or 'Kerney' to the Scots 'Cairney.'

There is also an O Cearnaigh sept that achieved fame at Cashel in Tipparary, but there is no evidence I've found
yet that any of them came to Scotland before about the 1860's (when several education acts helped stabilized
the spellings of names and improved literacy), when and where O Cearnaigh had universally become 'Cairney',
because 'Cairney', a Scots word pronounced with a Scots accent (pronounced tightly, palletized, with a rolled 'r'
to rhyme with 'fear'), was the preferred local form of the Gaelic Cearnaigh and Catharnaigh, both of which
became 'Kearney' or 'Carney' in Ireland (however, I have not found any O Catharnaigh in the pre-1860
immigration to Scotland.  They were from the Midlands west of Dublin: their head was long Baron of Kilcourcey
in Co. Offaly).

The Cairneys are claimed as a sept by the Clan Leslie, because of an important 14th-century marriage with the
heiress of the Columban Co-arbs and Thanes of Abernethy in Fife, who also, ironically, held the barony of
Cairney.   The house of Abernethy was another key branch of the kindred of St. Columba  in Scotland.    
              † Click here for a map of these relationships.

But it is the Carnies or Cairnys of Aberdeen who are traditionally connected with the Leslies, and have long been
listed as a sept, though, as mentioned above,  they may be the same as the Cairneys of Perth.  Interestingly,
Bishop Robert Cairney of Dunkeld was a cousin of the Leslie Earl of Ross.  

'Cairney' is a Scots noun meaning 'hillock', an adjective meaning 'rocky', and a verb meaning 'to pile up stones'
in the Scots phrase 'to cairney up stones'.  

At the same time, 'Cairney' is fairly common as a place-name is Scotland, though its etymology has nothing to
do with rocks: the basic etymology is Pictish (akin to Welsh) 'carden' (thicket)  with a Gaelic '-aigh' on the end,
yeilding 'Cairdeney', pronounced and eventually written in Scots as 'Cairney.'

Thus the surname is either from '(de) Cairney' as a name from a place name, or, in the case of the patronymic, it
is from the Northern (Scots and Ulster Scots) equivalent pronunciation of the Gaelic  '(O) Cearnaigh'.