In form, Cunningham is originally Scottish, taken from the place of the same name near Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. This name was originally Cuinneagan, from the Scots Gaelic cuinneag, meaning "milk-pail", and was given its present form through the mistake of a twelfth-century English scribe who transcribed the ending as "-ham", a purely English suffix meaning "village". Many Scottish Cunninghams came to Ireland in the seventeenth-century Plantation of Ulster, and their descendants now form the bulk of those bearing the name in that province, where it is most numerous. As well as these, however, many of native Gaelic stock also adopted Cunningham as the anglicised version of their names. Among these were the Mac Cuinneagain (MacCunnigan) of Co. Donegal, the O Cuineagain or O Cuineachain (Kennigan/Kinahan) of Co. Antrim, the O Connachain (Conaghan) of counties Tyrone and Derry, the Mac Donnegain (Donegan) of Co. Down and the O Connagain (Conagan) of Co. Armagh. The most numerous, however, were the O Connagan and Mac Cuinneagain of Connacht, where the surname remains most common outside Ulster. The Scottish influx, together with the large number of Irish originals which Cunningham came to represent, have made it common and widespread throughout Ireland.