Rory Frederick McCann was born on 24 April 1969 at 11:02am, one hour east of Greenwich Mean, in Scotland.
There is some dispute over whether he was born in Paisley or in Glasgow. Most sources say Glasgow. I am unclear whether this is due to Paisley’s somewhat less-than-stellar reputation among locals or whether Rory himself prefers Glasgow as the locale where he did most of his growing up. The conflation of Paisley with Glasgow may even be a widely-agreed-upon geographical shortcut, the way Dublin, Ohio is considered part of Columbus, Ohio even though Dublin is its own municipality with its own police force and postal ZIP Codes. Paisley and Glasgow are not as close together as Dublin and Columbus are, but that probably doesn’t matter to locals.
Personally I am going with this source and with Rory’s birthplace being Paisley, because the source in question claims to have seen his actual birth certificate. Anyway, that places him squarely in good company including Gerard Butler (with whom he’s acted before), Steven Moffat (my favorite Doctor Who writer), David Tennant (one of my top five favorite Doctors!), and Denzil Meyrick which, considering what Meyrick is famous for, has me shaking my head and marveling at the capriciousness of the universe.
I have never seen the names of Rory’s father and mother in print. In roughly three years from this date, Rory became a big brother to Sally-Gay McCann who went on to work in costuming for the TV and film industry for years, including on Game of Thrones and in fact, in a way, helped her brother land his role as Sandor “The Hound” Clegane.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
An investigation into the meanings of Rory’s first and middle names and surname yields interesting fruit. Clearly Rory was well-loved and/or his parents had high hopes for him but, given what came later, Rory’s surname is even more notable.
RORY: Red king
FREDERICK: Peaceful ruler
McCANN: Son of wolf cub
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SOURCES:
Definition of Rory: source [archive]
Definition of Frederick: source [archive]
Definition of McCann:
McCann (surname) at Wikipedia [archive]
McCann Name History, Family Crest, & Coats of Arms at House of Names [archive]
McCann Surname History at johngrenham.com [archive]
Astrological information, if you must (I like this sort of thing too, not judging): Best source for birth info [archive] and detailed data on Rory’s natal chart [archive].
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…Any further questions about this: Ask Rory. Obviously.