O, Mc, Mac, Van, Vander, De, and similar prefixes can easily be removed from a name when it is being entered into a record. O’Neill can become Neil, Vandeberg can become Berg. Names that are compound names can only appear partially in a record: Greenberry becomes Green or Berry.
Any name can have part of it cut off before it gets recorded.
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One of my primary ancestral surnames is McGarrity, from County Tyrone. I often find the name transcribed as middle initial M, surname Garrity.