Irish surnames starting with B

The B names in brief

• Barrett · Bairéid · Norman
  Possibly 'quarrelsome' (baraud). Two Norman streams, Mayo and Cork, both gone Gaelic — the Mayo Barretts even created their own hereditary Gaelic office, the 'MacAndrew'. Elizabeth Barrett Browning descends from the Cork line.
• Barry · de Barra · Norman
  From Barri in Wales. With the invasion from the start, Gerald of Wales was one of them, the Barrys took root in Cork so deeply that Buttevant, their town, comes from their war-cry 'Boutez en avant!'
• Beattie · Biadhtach (source) · Ulster Scots / Gaelic
  From Bartholomew — or Irish biadhtach, 'public hospitaller'. A double-rooted Ulster name: Scots Beatties of the Borders, and the old Irish 'betagh' food-providers whose office fed travellers free by law — hospitality fossilised into a surname.
• Behan · Ó Beacháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Beachán — from beach, 'bee'. A literary family of Offaly and Laois, now spread widely through Leinster and Munster. Brendan Behan gave the name to the world twice over, as a playwright and as a legend.
• Bell · — · Ulster Scots
  At the bell, or 'the handsome' (bel). One of the commonest planter names of the Scottish Border 'riding' families, transplanted wholesale to Ulster — reivers turned weavers turned shipwrights of the Titanic yards.
• Bermingham · Mac Fheorais · Norman
  From Birmingham, England. Conquerors of Uí Maine who turned Gaelic as 'Mac Fheorais' — sons of Piers. Their tower at Athenry and their bloody victory there in 1316 shaped Connacht's map for centuries.
• Blake · de Bláca · Norman
  Le blac — 'the black-haired'. Galway Tribe with tower-houses across the county; Blake letters from the 1830s Australian goldfields are among emigration's best first-hand records.
• Bodkin · Boidicín · Norman
  A nickname from a short dagger. The smallest of Galway's Tribes, FitzGeralds by blood renamed for a blade; their arms and vaults still line the city's medieval church of St Nicholas.
• Boylan · Ó Baoighealláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Baoigheallán. Chiefs of Dartraighe, the present barony of Dartry in west Monaghan, and at one time, Woulfe says, of all Oriel, before the MacMahons rose above them.
• Boyle · Ó Baoighill · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Baoigheall, 'vain pledge'. One of Donegal's three great septs with O'Donnell and O'Doherty, lords of the Rosses. (Robert Boyle the chemist was a different, planter Boyle — Ireland holds both stories.)
• Brady · Mac Brádaigh · Gaelic sept
  Son of Brádach, 'spirited'. Chiefs under the O'Reillys of Bréifne, so prolific that Brady is practically Cavan's second name. The sept gave the church a string of bishops and America a photographer of its Civil War, Mathew Brady.
• Brennan · Ó Braonáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Braonán, 'little drop / sorrow'. The Kilkenny sept held Idough in the north of the county; when dispossessed, so many turned rapparee that 'Brennan on the Moor' became one of Ireland's great outlaw ballads.
• Breslin · Ó Breisleáin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Breasal — the meaning of the personal name is not securely known. Natives of Inniskeel on the Fanad peninsula in Donegal, descended from the Cinel Enda. In 1261 the MacSweeneys forced them out and they moved to Derryvullan in Fermanagh, where they became brehons, hereditary judges, to the Maguires.
• Brogan · Ó Brógáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Brógán — probably from bróg, 'shoe'. A Connacht name also carried by an early Irish saint, Broccán. The root word bróg gave English its brogue — both the shoe and, later, the accent.
• Brophy · Ó Bróithe · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Brothe. One of the oldest true hereditary surnames in Europe, traced to a ninth-century Ossory ancestor — and still concentrated within a few miles of Ballybrophy in Laois, eleven centuries later.
• Brosnan · Ó Brosnacháin · Gaelic sept
  Of Brosna — the river and village in Kerry. A name that never strayed far from the river it is called after: the Brosnans have been Kerry people for as long as records run. Navan-born Pierce Brosnan carried it to Hollywood.
• Buckley · Ó Buachalla · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Buachaill, 'the herdsman'. A Munster name of pasture and hill-farms that multiplied mightily around Cork; the last Governor-General of the Free State, Domhnall Ua Buachalla, restored its Irish form on state papers.
• Burke · de Búrca · Norman dynasty
  From de Burgh — 'of the borough'. Conquerors of Connacht who went spectacularly native: within a century the de Burghs were Burkes, speaking Irish, keeping poets, and electing chiefs by Gaelic law.
• Butler · de Buitléir · Norman dynasty
  Le botiler — the (chief) butler of Ireland. Hereditary Chief Butlers of Ireland and earls of Ormond, ruling the Nore and Suir valleys from Kilkenny Castle for 500 years — the crown's steadiest great family.
• Byrne · Ó Broin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Bran, 'raven'. Driven from Kildare by the Normans into the Wicklow mountains — from where they raided the Pale for 400 years. Fiach McHugh O'Byrne destroyed an English army at Glenmalure in 1580.

Also spelled with B

These are listed on the atlas under another spelling, but the B form is the one many families carry.