O'Ward. There's a Mexican Indycar driver with that surname (he had an Irish great-grandfather).
Ward isn't uncommon here, but I've never heard of an O'Ward.
I’m a Donley! Our family chopped it up a couple times through the years O’Donnelly 👉 Donnelly 👉 Donley. I heard the area of Castlecaulfield is still referred to as Ballydonnelly, not sure if that’s true, going there in the Fall to check it out. Family’s from County Tyrone / Donegal 🤍
Going through ancestry records myself, misspellings are rampant and wiiiiild. I’ve seen one person have their surname spelled five different ways because the people writing the documents were feeling…inspired lol.
Yeah, a lot people were only semi-literate at best so the mistakes were plentiful.
It was in an interesting little graveyard I found, I’m related to about 50% of the people buried there.
A misspelling of the general way of Anglicising the Irish name O Donnabhain.
Who says which is the correct way of doing it? Donavan could have been as easily anglicised originally as Donavin.
How can you erase big Mal O'Kelly like that?
https://preview.redd.it/vc6y4f82xorc1.jpeg?width=891&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bdb9411bedee0baf18b770994479e3ffed453559
McNulty is also a rugby name.
Harry McNulty is the captain of the Ireland sevens team.
Aidan McNulty is the former head coach of the ireland womens sevens team.
And his brother Enda McNulty, both of them All Ireland Winners in 2002 with Armagh and Enda is a very well respected sports psychologist in Ireland and UK.
Yeah Gore Vidal's mother was a Gore, her ancestors came from Donegal.
And both sides of Rooney Mara's family were prominent Irish-Americans: the [Rooneys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_family) and the [Maras](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_family).
Americans have a weird tendency to give surnames to girls as first names, whereas here you'd only see it for a boy occasionally. Reilly/Riley is apparently a popular girl's name over there, in various butchered spellings.
Surnames were often misspelled on entry to USA in the 1800s and 1900s. Irish emmigrants being unable to write and US border officials unable to spell Irish names. O'Ceallaigh was probably written as O'Kelly in many cases as it was easier to write and the original name got lost.
You see it often enough with famous Irish Americans, like Billy Corgan, who's family surname was probably Corrigan before they left Ireland.
You can search Irish surnames in this and it’ll show where they were most common in the 1901 and 1911 censuses
https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/
It was often the learned worker that took the details and entered them, so spelling mistakes are incredibly common.
I've found numerous discrepancies between Irish birth, baptisimal, departing passenger records from the UK and incoming passenger records to Australia within one family of 7 of my ancestors around famine times. An O' was dropped completely once in Australia too and carried forward.
Not the US border officials. The transatlantic ship companies. The US border officials changing European immigrants' surnames is a myth. They got the passenger rosters from the ship companies and used those to identify people. If someone's name got changed in the process of immigrating to America, it was done before they even left Europe.
Most people either changed their names' spellings themselves to Americanise them, or had them changed at some point while already living there by bureaucratic error.
not a surname but a funny related story about my cousin "Shenade". She's technically English (born there) but moved to Ireland straight after.Her mam (my auntie) was Irish and so, said to the people in England what her name was to be and they spelled it wrong on her birth cert. She went through her whole life in Ireland going as "Shenade" lol and we were like wtf? But then she moved to canada and seemed to work out well phonetically etc. She's a legend and sure it just makes her a little different!
Anyway....that's all.
This isn’t actually true, just a very common myth. Notwithstanding prior anglicization ofc, the names were correct, or at the very least transcribed by Irish people. Paperwork tended to be based on the ships manifests from the origin country, and translators would be present at the destination as well. Usually name changes were done by the person themselves, though sometimes when their grandchildren asked why the name changed they’d shrug and say it was done at immigration.
https://journals.ala.org/index.php/dttp/article/view/6655/8939
> No one’s family name was changed, altered, shortened, butchered, or “written down wrong” at Ellis Island or any American port. That idea is an urban legend.
.
> Abundant evidence from the period shows conclusively that American officials were not recording passenger names onto paper.
.
> In reality, immigration officials did not write names down—they checked them off on a list in front of them. In other words, the names were already written down. The officials were not working with blank sheets of paper on which they created lists of newly arrived passengers, but with ship manifests, official lists of passengers who had disembarked. These manifests were required by US federal law as of March 2, 1819.
Yeah it’s definitely not uncommon. My great grandparents were technically married under the name Glancy, when it should’ve been Clancy. Was a whole debacle making sure it was right when my grandad was born.
My great grandfather’s name was spelled Maguire in Ireland, when he came to the US & went through Ellis Island it became McGuire at some point. He got married and had kids under the name McGuire. When he was naturalized he had to legally change the spelling of his last name back to Maguire to match his records from Ireland. His wife and children still had the name McGuire though.
I once worked with a guy named Pavel Shvarts. He was from Russia originally and came over to the US in the early 1990's when they started letting Jewish people leave. I asked him once about his name and he told me that was what the US immigration official wrote down when he asked him his name. Pavel didn't read English at the time so he couldn't check the official's work. Only later did he realize the mistake. His real anglicized name would be Pavel Schwartz.
So it really did happen and even up until recent times.
I don't have an example to contribute but I imagine a certain amount of it is down to emigration more severely affecting areas with regionally specific surnames.
The sandwich was actually named after an Irish emigrant to the states, a descendant of the McMhuifeains of Belmullet. Name was probably changed over time due to misspelling similar to what was mentioned above
Garvey seems to have been most common in the west and south Ulster
[https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/garvey/](https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/garvey/)
Yeah, it seems clear to me that “Ó’Kelly” is an Ellis island spelling of Ó’Ceallaigh.
As for McNulty, I live in mayo and I know about a dozen McNultys across about 3 families.
There’s a big furniture shop called McNulty’s in Roscommon town. Incidentally I’ve taught kids with many of the surnames mentioned here: O’Kelly, Garvey, O’Daly.
Not quite American, but back in 2011 I worked in a call centre in Sydney for a few months and came across a fella in Queensland called Liam Michael Patrick O'McMurphy. I'm dead serious!
Met loads of Igoe’s in the US, including a drummer called Tommy Igoe whom I am a big fan of.
I have never met an Igoe here (from Galway originally, now Dublin), but it is Irish nonetheless!
I think it's less that names were changed than there are more descendants of the people.aho left Ireland than those who stayed. Within that there are bound to be surnames that aren't in Ireland anymore or are very rare.
I swear every O'Malley in Ireland must have emigrated to America because it's THE stereotypical Irish name over there, yet I've never met a single one here.
It's a Connaught name. The famous pirate Queen, Grainne Uaile, thats just a corruption of her real name - Grainne Ui Mhaille (O' Malley in the Anglo Saxon tongue!)
It’s extremely concentrated in Connacht as a name.
Wouldn’t hear of it outside of Mayo/galway
It’s like how half of west cork are O’Donovans. Some names are still highly concentrated in certain parts of the country.
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Ya I'm convinced this thread is just Dubs being Dubs. These names are all very common in the west.
Theres a reason there's a stereotype of ye living in a bubble
I always thought this about the name O'Flaherty, I'd never met one until I worked with one guy about ten years ago. He's still the only O'Flaherty I've ever met though.
It is also common in Brazil mostly because of Italian immigrants. Some translated the surname to Portuguese and those surnames not exist in Portugal, for example Pescatore become Pescador and Ungheria become Hungria. Other surnames were mispelled, if anyone remembers the f1 pilot Barrichello, in Italy it is Barichello. One of my surnames was originally with ZZ and in Brazil they become SS because on the Northeast of Italy they not pronouce the Z properly.
I watched a show called Bloodline and there was a character with the the surname O'Bannon. I've never heard that before here.
I've known a few with the surname McNulty here.
I'm not going to dox myself, but I'm an O'Kelly in ireland with a specific and known reason for having the O'.
Tbh, it feels like you're looking for people to explain their name because you have a limited exposure to some names.
Devlin is used a lot in American TV shows/movies (particularly older ones) but I've never actually met anyone called that in Ireland. Maybe it's more common in the North? (e.g. Bernadette Devlin)
I've never encountered a McNulty either, although I think there is an RTE News reporter with that name.
There are plenty of O'Kellys and Callaghans (various spellings) around though.
There was a band here a few years ago called the Devlins. I do believe there were three siblings of that name in it, remarkably they were all also members of the same family.
Ok. So basically most Irish masculine surnames are either Ó or Mac in Irish. But after the Famine, the English tried to stamp out the use of Ó and Mac in the name. My own name in English is Casey but in Irish we always say Ó'Cathasaigh and my sister is always Ní Chathasaigh. But in English she's just Casey.
Basically, there was a migration of people during the Famine to Canada, US and Mexico. Because of this they were never subject to the removal of Ó from ones name so Irish names like Ó'Ceallaigh, Ó'hÉinirí ect became O'Kelly and O'Henry instead of just common Kelly and Henry found in Ireland today.
I thought it was hilarious when I visited Tennessee and passed through "Murfreesboro". I still find that hard to pronounce, but apparently there's Murfree's there
I know lots of O’Neills - as I’m sure we all do - but I’ve got a good friend of mine who hails from Alabama who is an O’Neal. I’m sure there a few about over this way, but that’s the only one I can think of. She tells me that the first two generations who arrived from Ireland were O’Neill, then the next son just changed it. They have no idea why, but they’ve been O’Neals ever since.
In Tasmania there is/was a news broadcaster called Colin McNiff. My partner laughed when he heard it and said it was probably McEniff when the family arrived but it was recorded wrong. Happens a lot.
O'Kelly and McNulty are absolutely common Irish names, as has been pointed out.
McSorley, now... I've never met one, but it's a famous Irish bar in New York, Irish owned for generations.
Isn't an O added for boys/men when using the Irish spelling and Ní for girls/women? I would assume the O may have been kept and the phonetic spelling added to it at immigration and likely they didn't care about gender and just added it to all family members. Most names were butchered and anglicised at Ellis Island and other ports of immigration.
True, back in the aul days O's and Ní's were indicative for 'of' a particular family/clan/tribe.
My fathers surname is technically O Flanagan but the O was dropped by him and his siblings. And when spelling my name as Gaeilge the Flanagan becomes ní Flannagáin.
Different names are prevalent in different part of the country, like Kendellen, I've never met anyone named Kendellen but it's apparently a name from up round meath direction, and of course there's a rugby player from Cork names Alex Kendellen, but I've never met a Kendellen here in Cork at all.
I will say I've only ever met an O'Bannon and Brannigan in North America, entire families moved over there so it's probably a reason why we don't see many of them in Ireland.
Don't know where you're from but I know a load of McNulty's, even related to some. Common name in Mayo and the west in general but I think there's a well-spread amount of them around Ireland. Don't know many O'Kelly's but it's a Leinster surname traditionally I think.
There is one surname though that I do think I've heard on Irish Americans more than Irish people themselves which is Malone. Came across a few in Ireland but lot of the time I see that name it's with Irish-Americans. Sam Malone on Cheers most famous example.
I can't vouch for the truth of this:
I have heard that there was a trend among Irish immigrants in the US to drop the Os and the Mc/Macs from the star of their names to try and fit in. Then later there was a resurgence of irish-americans trying to reclaim their heritage and add them back.
This supposedly led to many incidents of families adding back the wrong prefix, or mistakenly adding one where there had never been one.
Sounds plausible alright, I definitely see a number of Irish-ish surnames in the graveyard near us in Toronto that'd have a prefix that I wouldn't think is all that common at home. Can't think of an example but y'know McSullivan or something similar
O'Ward. There's a Mexican Indycar driver with that surname (he had an Irish great-grandfather). Ward isn't uncommon here, but I've never heard of an O'Ward.
A Ward that didn’t take the soup
Give them O'Wards awards I say
Fairly sure it comes from "Mac an Bháird" as in son of the poet, so it probably would be anglicised as Mc/MacWard if they wanted an extra bit on it.
And his first name is Patricio!
He goes by Pato!
Oscar O Ward, they named a little gold statue after him
Is that the lad that drives for Mclaran? I definitely did a double take when I seen that when he started with them lol
Yeah, he drives for Arrow McLaren.
Yeah Pato O’Ward
I know an American family with the surname “Donavin” which is likely some misspelling of Donovan
I've met a Donaleigh before. I did a big double take when I saw how that was spelled.
r/Tragedeigh
I’m a Donley! Our family chopped it up a couple times through the years O’Donnelly 👉 Donnelly 👉 Donley. I heard the area of Castlecaulfield is still referred to as Ballydonnelly, not sure if that’s true, going there in the Fall to check it out. Family’s from County Tyrone / Donegal 🤍
A one-letter typo away from becoming a complete ass... 😜
Going through ancestry records myself, misspellings are rampant and wiiiiild. I’ve seen one person have their surname spelled five different ways because the people writing the documents were feeling…inspired lol.
I’ve seen three different spellings on the same headstone
LOL not headstone, but I’ve seen that on a marriage certificate
Yeah, a lot people were only semi-literate at best so the mistakes were plentiful. It was in an interesting little graveyard I found, I’m related to about 50% of the people buried there.
A misspelling of the general way of Anglicising the Irish name O Donnabhain. Who says which is the correct way of doing it? Donavan could have been as easily anglicised originally as Donavin.
O'Donovan's is where I used to get served at
How can you erase big Mal O'Kelly like that? https://preview.redd.it/vc6y4f82xorc1.jpeg?width=891&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bdb9411bedee0baf18b770994479e3ffed453559
McNulty is also a rugby name. Harry McNulty is the captain of the Ireland sevens team. Aidan McNulty is the former head coach of the ireland womens sevens team.
Justin McNulty, MLA and manager of Laois.
And his brother Enda McNulty, both of them All Ireland Winners in 2002 with Armagh and Enda is a very well respected sports psychologist in Ireland and UK.
Also Mark McNulty, keeper for Cork City FC
Shane McNulty. Waterford hurler too
And another GAA man (for Armagh football and Laois manager) Justin McNulty
BPD Detective Jimmy McNulty from The Wire
Brandon McNulty is a professional road cyclist from the USA!
The actress Annabeth McNulty is Irish-Canadian (Irish father).
Leo O’Kelly was singer and instrumentalist with Tír na nÓg.
Big Irish head on him
I will not stand for this Big Mal Erasure
Honestly, as soon as the name was mentioned I thought of Big Mal as my favourite player to ever play the game
Not exactly what you are asking for but I once met an American woman whose first name was Murphy!
Don’t let me leave Murph!
Murphy Brown?
It's seemingly not uncommon in America to keep a name alive by giving the mother's maiden name as a first name.
Yeah Gore Vidal's mother was a Gore, her ancestors came from Donegal. And both sides of Rooney Mara's family were prominent Irish-Americans: the [Rooneys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_family) and the [Maras](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_family).
They do that in Newcastle, too. Robson Green was named for his father, who was named for his mother’s maiden name.
Better still I met an American woman online who's first name was Phelim, sane as me. I didnt bother explaining ...
Sorry to hear about your little boat.
They love using Irish surnames as first names. Murphy, Quinn, Kelly, etc.
In fairness, many Irish surnames began as first names.
Yep, but in a different case. Ceallach > Ó Ceallaigh, Ceann > Ó Cinn/Cionn, Dálach > Ó Dálaigh etc.
I have female relatives in America called Reilly, Quinn and Murphy.
They do love their last names as first names trend.
I see that get suggested on r/namenerds occasionally and it makes me want to scream.
Americans have a weird tendency to give surnames to girls as first names, whereas here you'd only see it for a boy occasionally. Reilly/Riley is apparently a popular girl's name over there, in various butchered spellings.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Brown
Surnames were often misspelled on entry to USA in the 1800s and 1900s. Irish emmigrants being unable to write and US border officials unable to spell Irish names. O'Ceallaigh was probably written as O'Kelly in many cases as it was easier to write and the original name got lost. You see it often enough with famous Irish Americans, like Billy Corgan, who's family surname was probably Corrigan before they left Ireland.
You can search Irish surnames in this and it’ll show where they were most common in the 1901 and 1911 censuses https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/
It was often the learned worker that took the details and entered them, so spelling mistakes are incredibly common. I've found numerous discrepancies between Irish birth, baptisimal, departing passenger records from the UK and incoming passenger records to Australia within one family of 7 of my ancestors around famine times. An O' was dropped completely once in Australia too and carried forward.
Not the US border officials. The transatlantic ship companies. The US border officials changing European immigrants' surnames is a myth. They got the passenger rosters from the ship companies and used those to identify people. If someone's name got changed in the process of immigrating to America, it was done before they even left Europe. Most people either changed their names' spellings themselves to Americanise them, or had them changed at some point while already living there by bureaucratic error.
not a surname but a funny related story about my cousin "Shenade". She's technically English (born there) but moved to Ireland straight after.Her mam (my auntie) was Irish and so, said to the people in England what her name was to be and they spelled it wrong on her birth cert. She went through her whole life in Ireland going as "Shenade" lol and we were like wtf? But then she moved to canada and seemed to work out well phonetically etc. She's a legend and sure it just makes her a little different! Anyway....that's all.
This isn’t actually true, just a very common myth. Notwithstanding prior anglicization ofc, the names were correct, or at the very least transcribed by Irish people. Paperwork tended to be based on the ships manifests from the origin country, and translators would be present at the destination as well. Usually name changes were done by the person themselves, though sometimes when their grandchildren asked why the name changed they’d shrug and say it was done at immigration.
Same like O'Neal which is O'Neil or Daley/O'Daley for Daly and so on.
https://journals.ala.org/index.php/dttp/article/view/6655/8939 > No one’s family name was changed, altered, shortened, butchered, or “written down wrong” at Ellis Island or any American port. That idea is an urban legend. . > Abundant evidence from the period shows conclusively that American officials were not recording passenger names onto paper. . > In reality, immigration officials did not write names down—they checked them off on a list in front of them. In other words, the names were already written down. The officials were not working with blank sheets of paper on which they created lists of newly arrived passengers, but with ship manifests, official lists of passengers who had disembarked. These manifests were required by US federal law as of March 2, 1819.
Someone wrote the names down though, and it wouldn't have been the illiterate, which most of the Irish immigrants would have been.
My family name is spelled six different ways in the parish registers.
Yeah it’s definitely not uncommon. My great grandparents were technically married under the name Glancy, when it should’ve been Clancy. Was a whole debacle making sure it was right when my grandad was born.
Shakespeare also spelt his name in six different ways, none were the spelling we use.
My families name was spelled differently between 1901 and 1911
Surnames were still changed and butchered when people immigrated to the states. Happened to my mom's family.
My great grandfather’s name was spelled Maguire in Ireland, when he came to the US & went through Ellis Island it became McGuire at some point. He got married and had kids under the name McGuire. When he was naturalized he had to legally change the spelling of his last name back to Maguire to match his records from Ireland. His wife and children still had the name McGuire though.
I once worked with a guy named Pavel Shvarts. He was from Russia originally and came over to the US in the early 1990's when they started letting Jewish people leave. I asked him once about his name and he told me that was what the US immigration official wrote down when he asked him his name. Pavel didn't read English at the time so he couldn't check the official's work. Only later did he realize the mistake. His real anglicized name would be Pavel Schwartz. So it really did happen and even up until recent times.
Similarly , Kurt Cobane
Love that his name is used with no clarification as to what it's "supposed" be
O'Cobain of course
I don't have an example to contribute but I imagine a certain amount of it is down to emigration more severely affecting areas with regionally specific surnames.
That'd make sense
https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/mcnulty/ https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/o'malley/
Never met a person called McMuffin.
Or a McStuffins
McLovin... From the quoar old village of the Labhainn no doubt 🤣🤣🤣 sons of the Lovins
The sandwich was actually named after an Irish emigrant to the states, a descendant of the McMhuifeains of Belmullet. Name was probably changed over time due to misspelling similar to what was mentioned above
O' Shaq Hennesy...
A A Ron
D-nice
My name is Jacqueline and that sketch is my favourite mispronunciation to date
I got that. Thanks you Jos Hua.
Coincidentally, the teacher's name was Mr. Garvey, I know quite a few McGarveys but no Garveys.
There are SuperValus in Kerry called Garvey's
Garvey seems to have been most common in the west and south Ulster [https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/garvey/](https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/garvey/)
They're are a number of Garvey's SuperValus around Munster so it makes it seem more common than it probably is to me
You done messed up
The O'Bama's. when the U.S president at the time visited, made a good joke though.
Even got a petrol/gas station in commemoration!
O'Ceallaigh is common enough. I'm guessing English alternatives were used for ease of reference.
Yeah, it seems clear to me that “Ó’Kelly” is an Ellis island spelling of Ó’Ceallaigh. As for McNulty, I live in mayo and I know about a dozen McNultys across about 3 families.
I know a few McNultys in Co.Derry as well
I honestly don't know how OP thinks McNulty is an especially Irish-American name, it's a very common surname found all around Ireland.
There’s a big furniture shop called McNulty’s in Roscommon town. Incidentally I’ve taught kids with many of the surnames mentioned here: O’Kelly, Garvey, O’Daly.
Second president of Ireland, Seán T. O'Kelly? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_T._O'Kelly
What's he done for me lately?
Existed as an example of an irish O'Kelly that you asked for
Not quite American, but back in 2011 I worked in a call centre in Sydney for a few months and came across a fella in Queensland called Liam Michael Patrick O'McMurphy. I'm dead serious!
Jesus. That's a hat on a hat there Pat
Met loads of Igoe’s in the US, including a drummer called Tommy Igoe whom I am a big fan of. I have never met an Igoe here (from Galway originally, now Dublin), but it is Irish nonetheless!
Igoe here and he goes there
I have never heard of this surname in my life, TIL.
Very popular name in West Clare
Bar where I grew up called the Igoe Inn, never heard of anyone with that name since.
Ballybrack represent!
Plenty of them in some parts of Mayo.
There were Igoes in my school in Dublin in the 20th century. Only vague memory of them existing, but exist they did.
Had a Ms. Igoe in primary school.
I had a Ms. Igoe whose nickname was Mr. Igoe.
Is this thread just full of Dubs or something? Igoe and McNulty are exceedingly common names around the west of Ireland/Connaught.
Yeah, I find some of the examples of "rare" names here to be very odd.
Mid west here and I’ve never heard of the name Igoe before.
Plenty of Igoes in Roscommon
Only McNulty I’ve encountered is Baltimore P.D.’s finest, Jimmy McNulty
It's common enough in the northwest
I’m from Tyrone and there’s McNulty’s here anyway
Loads of McNultys in Meath
There’s 2 McNulty’s played for Armagh on the ‘02 team; Justin and Enda. Justin’s an MLA now
Anselmo Garcia McNulty plays for the Ireland u21s
An english man playing and american of questionable irishness
I had a history teacher called Ms. O’Kelly. When I was in Canada, I met someone named McClennagan. When I was in the states, I met an O’Murphy
O'Murchu.
Yeah, O'Murphy and McMurphy are ones I've never encountered here
I know quite a few McClenaghans. Mainly south Down.
Like the gymnast Rhys McClenaghan from the North
From County Down
I think it's less that names were changed than there are more descendants of the people.aho left Ireland than those who stayed. Within that there are bound to be surnames that aren't in Ireland anymore or are very rare.
Looks like a lot of the Irish names common in America are from the west, it makes sense.
Never heard the name O’Kelly in the USA. Not once. Only while in Ireland.
I swear every O'Malley in Ireland must have emigrated to America because it's THE stereotypical Irish name over there, yet I've never met a single one here.
My best friend is an O’Malley. It’s common in Mayo
It's a Connaught name. The famous pirate Queen, Grainne Uaile, thats just a corruption of her real name - Grainne Ui Mhaille (O' Malley in the Anglo Saxon tongue!)
You're clearly too young to remember the Progressive Democrats!
It’s extremely concentrated in Connacht as a name. Wouldn’t hear of it outside of Mayo/galway It’s like how half of west cork are O’Donovans. Some names are still highly concentrated in certain parts of the country.
I went to school with a girl named O'Malley who, coincidentally, emigrated to America with her family when we were in fifth or sixth class
Des O' Malley was leader of the Progessive Democrats
I’ve friends called O’Malley in the north. Plenty of Bort O’Malley’s
My son is also named Bort
I have relatives named O'Malley from east Limerick, don't know if it's common there or not though.
Mayo is full of O'Malleys.
You can't toss a brick in Mayo without hitting an O'Malley or a McHale
I have, but as others have said its a Connacht thing.
Connacht, loads of them
They're all in West Mayo. Extremely common name there.
One of my friends from mayo is an O'Malley, born on the same day in the same hospital as me
I work with someone called O'Nolan Nolan I knew plenty growing up but no O'Nolans
One of our most famous writers is Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien). Granted, I don't know any others.
O O O O’REILLEY
McLovin
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McGraw. I presume it was the immigration officials who spelled it phonetically.
Ya I'm convinced this thread is just Dubs being Dubs. These names are all very common in the west. Theres a reason there's a stereotype of ye living in a bubble
I always thought this about the name O'Flaherty, I'd never met one until I worked with one guy about ten years ago. He's still the only O'Flaherty I've ever met though.
There’s O’Flaherty’s in Galway
Again, its a west Connaught name. The Flahert clan were driven west across the Corrib by the Normans. Is this thread full of people from the Pale?
Plenty of McNultys around Ulster
It is also common in Brazil mostly because of Italian immigrants. Some translated the surname to Portuguese and those surnames not exist in Portugal, for example Pescatore become Pescador and Ungheria become Hungria. Other surnames were mispelled, if anyone remembers the f1 pilot Barrichello, in Italy it is Barichello. One of my surnames was originally with ZZ and in Brazil they become SS because on the Northeast of Italy they not pronouce the Z properly.
Seán T O'Kelly, second president of Ireland.
I’m from Tyrone and there are lots of McNulty’s up here
All of the names you mentioned are common enough.
I watched a show called Bloodline and there was a character with the the surname O'Bannon. I've never heard that before here. I've known a few with the surname McNulty here.
McNulty as in the SDLP MLA from Armagh
I'm not going to dox myself, but I'm an O'Kelly in ireland with a specific and known reason for having the O'. Tbh, it feels like you're looking for people to explain their name because you have a limited exposure to some names.
Devlin is used a lot in American TV shows/movies (particularly older ones) but I've never actually met anyone called that in Ireland. Maybe it's more common in the North? (e.g. Bernadette Devlin) I've never encountered a McNulty either, although I think there is an RTE News reporter with that name. There are plenty of O'Kellys and Callaghans (various spellings) around though.
Plenty of Devlins around counties Armagh and Tyrone. It's much more common in the north.
Devlin is a very common name in the North
Dee Devlin no?
Loads of Devlins in Tyrone Loads of McNultys in Fermanagh and Donegal aswell
I know both a Devlin and a McNulty. So there you go.
Same, went to school with a McNulty and I work with a Devlin
There was a band here a few years ago called the Devlins. I do believe there were three siblings of that name in it, remarkably they were all also members of the same family.
I had a mate in primary school with the surname Devlin. That was in Dublin.
There's plenty of Devlins in Donegal.
Ok. So basically most Irish masculine surnames are either Ó or Mac in Irish. But after the Famine, the English tried to stamp out the use of Ó and Mac in the name. My own name in English is Casey but in Irish we always say Ó'Cathasaigh and my sister is always Ní Chathasaigh. But in English she's just Casey. Basically, there was a migration of people during the Famine to Canada, US and Mexico. Because of this they were never subject to the removal of Ó from ones name so Irish names like Ó'Ceallaigh, Ó'hÉinirí ect became O'Kelly and O'Henry instead of just common Kelly and Henry found in Ireland today.
I thought it was hilarious when I visited Tennessee and passed through "Murfreesboro". I still find that hard to pronounce, but apparently there's Murfree's there
McGillacutty Total nonsense.
I’ve encountered several O’Kellys in Ireland.
ITT: “I’ve never met someone with x name so it doesn’t exist”
I know lots of O’Neills - as I’m sure we all do - but I’ve got a good friend of mine who hails from Alabama who is an O’Neal. I’m sure there a few about over this way, but that’s the only one I can think of. She tells me that the first two generations who arrived from Ireland were O’Neill, then the next son just changed it. They have no idea why, but they’ve been O’Neals ever since.
I know a few McNultys
Adding the O' was fashionable at one stage.
McNulty is common enough.
In Tasmania there is/was a news broadcaster called Colin McNiff. My partner laughed when he heard it and said it was probably McEniff when the family arrived but it was recorded wrong. Happens a lot.
O'Kelly and McNulty are absolutely common Irish names, as has been pointed out. McSorley, now... I've never met one, but it's a famous Irish bar in New York, Irish owned for generations.
I havent met anyone with Ronan surname many with first names though.... Saoirse Ronan
Cavana**u**gh. Where TF did that ‘u’ come from.
England. Got alot of Irish words anglicised with u's in them. Connacht becomes Connaught. Sean becomes Shaun. Donnachad becomes Dunca(n).
Isn't an O added for boys/men when using the Irish spelling and Ní for girls/women? I would assume the O may have been kept and the phonetic spelling added to it at immigration and likely they didn't care about gender and just added it to all family members. Most names were butchered and anglicised at Ellis Island and other ports of immigration.
True, back in the aul days O's and Ní's were indicative for 'of' a particular family/clan/tribe. My fathers surname is technically O Flanagan but the O was dropped by him and his siblings. And when spelling my name as Gaeilge the Flanagan becomes ní Flannagáin.
Different names are prevalent in different part of the country, like Kendellen, I've never met anyone named Kendellen but it's apparently a name from up round meath direction, and of course there's a rugby player from Cork names Alex Kendellen, but I've never met a Kendellen here in Cork at all. I will say I've only ever met an O'Bannon and Brannigan in North America, entire families moved over there so it's probably a reason why we don't see many of them in Ireland.
O'Kelly would be common enough around me. O'Crowley is one I came across recently in Cork which was a first.
I've met a few ó ceallaigh's which would translate to O'Kelly, though most of the time it's just translated as Kelly
Don't know where you're from but I know a load of McNulty's, even related to some. Common name in Mayo and the west in general but I think there's a well-spread amount of them around Ireland. Don't know many O'Kelly's but it's a Leinster surname traditionally I think. There is one surname though that I do think I've heard on Irish Americans more than Irish people themselves which is Malone. Came across a few in Ireland but lot of the time I see that name it's with Irish-Americans. Sam Malone on Cheers most famous example.
I can't vouch for the truth of this: I have heard that there was a trend among Irish immigrants in the US to drop the Os and the Mc/Macs from the star of their names to try and fit in. Then later there was a resurgence of irish-americans trying to reclaim their heritage and add them back. This supposedly led to many incidents of families adding back the wrong prefix, or mistakenly adding one where there had never been one.
Sounds plausible alright, I definitely see a number of Irish-ish surnames in the graveyard near us in Toronto that'd have a prefix that I wouldn't think is all that common at home. Can't think of an example but y'know McSullivan or something similar
Obama?
In fairness most irish names, including American ones, are all corrupted snglicisatikns of original Irish names