The Mounties? 
I associate what the OP’s calling for more with WASPs than Scottish. Many WASP and Scot surnames are interchangeable (from my own ancestors White, Milner, and, in fact, Scott are found among both).
Perhaps, but see [post=12790953]this post[/post] in a current thread about the Troubles, where lexi points out that the Scots-Irish often consider themselves just as Irish as the Catholics, and aren’t in any meaningful sense interlopers or colonials.
That’s certainly true, for white Americans at least. The post I linked to also discusses this issue.
While there’s a group of people who claim that the Scots Irish were the most influential on the U.S., I’d take their claims with a grain of salt. There’s always a certain amount of special pleading in their claims. They take a selected group of things to represent American culture that are only a limited view of the culture. They claim to show that these were Scots-Irish-influenced, but they don’t make much of an effort to check if these aspects of American culture could be influenced by other countries too. I don’t know how you could make a complete survey of American culture to check what country or people were the greatest influence. At the very least it would be a huge job.
I decided to test this, using this country-of-origin site.
Obama: Not on the site, but we all know that’s Kenyan
McCain: Irish version of Scottish McKean.
Bush: Either English, or Anglicized version of German Busch. I’m not sure which the Presidents’ name is.
Kerry: Welsh. I’d have thought it’d be native Irish, but either way, not Scottish.
Gore: Either English or French
Dole: English, Irish, or French
Clinton: Scots-Irish or English
Dukakis: Can’t find it on the site.
Reagan: Irish
Mondale: Anglicized form of Norwegian Mundahl
Carter: English, French, or Scots-Irish
Ford: English, Irish, Jewish, or German
McGovern: Irish and Scottish
Nixon: English, Scottish, or Scots-Irish
Humphrey: English
Goldwater: German or Jewish
Johnson: English, Scottish, or anglicized form of equivalent names from other languages.
Kennedy: Irish and Scottish
Eisenhower: German
Stevenson: Scottish and Scots-Irish
I think that’s enough to make the point. Out of those, I count 8 that might be Scottish (or might be English or Irish), and 11 that definitely aren’t Scottish. Scottish names are certainly fairly well-represented, but I don’t think they’re significantly more represented than Irish or English.
As an English person with a Welsh girlfriend, I can only endorse this comment.
Although, all the Welsh people went to Patagonia.
He does look a little like Shirley Bassey, now you mention it.
The Scots themselves have got a little cottage industry up-and-running trying to convince everybody that they invented the modern world. I’ve Scottish friends who’ve tried to argue in the past that the Enlightenment was a Scottish movement, for instance, presumably unaware that it engulfed the whole of the Western world simultaneously. See also the numerous books along the lines of “How the Scots Invented the Modern World” by Herman. (Not to play down the role many prominent Scottish philosophers and scientists had during the Englightenment, though!)
Possibly interesting note: the name Kerry was adopted by Kerry’s grandfather (and the grandfather’s brother) off a map. The family name was originally Kohn, but the brothers had converted to Catholicism and decided they wanted a name that didn’t sound Jewish.
Greek.
I, for one, would not attempt to tell these guys they ought to Go Back to Scotland!
Ironic, given that Coen/Cohen is a not uncommon native Irish name.
Actually, in Kerry’s case, it’s his mother’s family who was Scottish. She was a Forbes.
Cattle rustling was as Irish as it was Scot. (The word “cowboy” seems to have been an Irish introduction.)
Masons are not particularly Scots and the “Scottish Rite” was actually formed in England with a romantic appeal to the tradition of Jacob VI/I without any actual Scots involved in the process.
One finds clans in the already noted Appalachian region, but not particularly elsewhere in either the West or the rest of the U.S.
Which would be the result of the Scots or Scots-Irish migration to the Carolinas and Georgia, with further movement West, but hardly indicative of some major influence on the whole country.
There is no question that the Scots and Scot-Irish played a large role in the development of the U.S., but I see no evidence that they placed a “Scots” stamp on the entire U.S. culture. There were far more Methodists and Episcopalians and Baptists than Presbyterians throughout most of the U.S. history. I can easily come up with many examples of German or Irish traditions that have permeated the U.S. (Christmas, Hallowe’en, etc.) that are actually defiance of Scots traditions.
If one wished to argue that the Scot contribution is often overlooked, I think that that case can be made. That the U.S. is “basically” a (culturally) “Scottish nation” is far too much of a stretch.
= = =
I would be interested in the information regarding a Scot influence on town building.
= = =
ETA - Correction: the Jacobite connection was a reference to Charles II, not to James VI/I.
And as we know, if it’s not Scottish it’s CRAP!*
*SNL reference. Mike Myers in pre-Shrek/Fat Bastard mode. Look it up, young people.
I was pretty struck with Jim Webb’s thesis in Born Fighting, which kind of opened my eyes about the S-I heritage, but yes, he does “specially plead” for them as people of force, and that ethic of force as fundamentally American. As a former SecNav and Vietnam vet, he might well be expected to.
Christmas, for sure, but Hallowe’en is as much a Scottish thing as Irish, being generally Celtic. Trick or treating comes from the Scots tradition of guising. It was still mostly called guising when I was a lad in the 70s, but nowadays most kids call it trick-or-treat.
Because if this were a Welsh nation, there’d be more sheep. Scared sheep.
If it isn’t Scottish, it’s crap.
SNL
What is the layout of an Ulster Scots town, and how does it differ from the layout of any other town in the UK? How do the Border Scots behave any differently from Border English, who presumably emigrated in as large a number as the Border Scots did (wasn’t it the Highland Scots who did most of the emigrating, not the Lowland Scots, after the Highland Clearances?)
It looks like he actually is BTW. Remember his mother’s side was white.
http://www.eneclann.ie/research/genealogy_obama_family_history.html