If your surname is Buchanan, you’re in good company. Check out our round-up of some of your most famous namesakes, famous for everything from politics to pop.
Andrew Buchanan of Drumpellier
If you’ve ever been to Glasgow, you’ve probably wandered down Buchanan Street, the city’s shopping hub. It was named for Andrew Buchanan of Drumpellier, one of Glasgow’s Tobacco Lords, a group of Scottish merchants and slave traders who made their fortunes in the 18th century. There’s recently been an appeal to renames streets in Glasgow which bear the names of slave traders, including Buchanan Street.
Keisha Buchanan
Keisha is one of the founding members of pop band, Sugababes. Born in 1984 in London to parents of Jamaican descent, talented Keisha formed the Sugababes in 1998. The band released their first single ‘Overload’ in 2000, and since then, the group has had six number one singles and two number one studio albums. Sugababes are one of the most successful 21st century pop acts in the UK. She left the band in 2009 but reunited with her original bandmates in 2011to continue their domination of the British pop scene.
Aimee Buchanan
Aimee Buchanan hails from Boston, Massachusetts but is a dual citizen of the US and Israel, the latter of which she represents in figure skating. She’s a two-time Israeli national champion in the ladies’ singles event, and competed in the team event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, where the team came in eighth. This ice princess Buchanan scored a personal best during that event, with a score of 46.30, which was an improvement of 1.23 points on her previous PB.
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is a Japanese-British-Chinese-American writer based in the UK. She’s received acclaim for her novels, including debut Harmless Like You. The book, published in the UK in 2016 and the US in 2017, received a Betty Trask Award, a prize for first-time novelists under the age of 35 living in a Commonwealth country, as well as the 2017’s Author’s Club First Novel Award. She’s also the editor of Go Home!, a 2018 anthology that collected stories from Asian-American writers who “complicate and expand the idea of home”.
Manley Augustus Buchanan
Better known as Big Youth (sometimes called Jah Youth), is a Jamaican deejay. Not to be confused with a disc jockey, a deejay in Jamaican music is a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and toasts to an instrumental rhythm. Big Youth was given the nickname by his colleagues when he left school at the age of 14, because he was both younger and taller than his co-workers. He quickly became popular for his deep voice and Rastafarian style, and is best known for the music he made in the 1970s including “The Killer”, his first big hit, and “S-90 Skank”, which was his first number one hit in Jamaica. At one point, Bob Marley even stated that Big Youth was his favourite artist.
James Buchanan
Clan Buchanan has a president among its ranks! James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States between 1857 and 1861. However, he’s consistently ranked as one of the US’ least effective presidents. He buried his head in the sand when it came to the issue of slavery, failing to address the disunity that was brewing between the northern and southern states. Abraham Lincoln was elected as Buchanan’s successor, and just weeks later, southern states began to secede from the United States, leading to the American Civil War. Some even call the Civil War “Buchanan’s War”, and he was regularly harassed in the years during and after the war, receiving threatening letters and accusations of colluding with the Confederacy.
Bull Buchanan
Barry ‘Bull’ Buchanan is an American professional wrestler, known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E). His ring names in the WWF are Recon, Bull Buchanan and B², whilst he goes by Buchanan with All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and Pro Wrestling Noah (PWN). He retired from wrestling in 2014 but has since returned to the ring with his son Ben for a tag team effort.
Roy Buchanan
Born in Arkansas in 1939, Leroy ‘Roy’ Buchanan was an American guitarist who never quite achieved the dizzying heights of stardom but was named by Guitar Player magazine as having one of the “50 Greatest Tones of All Time”. He allegedly was asked to join the Rolling Stones - but neglected to do so, earning him the nickname “the man who turned the Stones down”. Roy’s guitar playing had a big influence on many who came after him, including Jeff Beck, Jerry Garcia and Mick Ronson. Jeff Beck even dedicated his version of “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” from Blow by Blow to Buchanan.
Beverly Buchanan
Born in 1940 in North Carolina, Beverly Buchanan was a noted African American artist who worked across various mediums including painting, sculpture, video and land art. She’s well-known for her work focusing on the “shack”, huts that are usually hand-made from local materials. Beverly Buchanan investigated the themes of identity, place and collective memory surrounding the shacks, showing the warmth and happiness that could be found even in these primitive dwellings.
Ken Buchanan
Ken Buchanan was a Scottish boxer who became the lightweight champion in 1970. His 17 year career in boxing was remarkable, and some of his history and story was used as inspiration for the movie Rocky. Good friends with fellow great boxers of his time, Muhammad Ali and Jim Watt, Ken began his professional boxing career in 1965, gaining an MBE in 1972, competing globally and finally retiring in 1982. Ken was born in Portobello, on the outskirts of Edinburgh and claims it was his father who introduced him to boxing. A statue can be found at the top of Leith Walk to remember Buchanan, Scotland’s greatest boxer.
So that’s it - your introduction to some of the most famous faces in Clan Buchanan from all over the world! What a talented bunch. Find out more about the history of Clan Buchanan and stay tuned for next week’s blog post on The Secrets of the Seats of Clan Buchanan.
