Irish surnames starting with D

The D names in brief

• Daly · Ó Dálaigh · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Dálach, 'of the assembly'. Dálach means one who holds or frequents assemblies. The O'Dalys descend from Maine, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and were first chiefs of Corca Adain in Westmeath, but they became famous as poets all over Ireland; O'Donovan wrote that no family did more for Irish bardic literature.
• Danaher · Ó Duineachair · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Duineachar, ‘man-loving’. The family were anciently lords of Crioch Cathbhaidh, near Nenagh. Woulfe says they lost those lands soon after the Anglo-Norman invasion and scattered through Munster, Leinster and Connacht.
• Darcy · Ó Dorchaidhe / d'Arcy · Gaelic sept & Norman
  Descendant of Dorchaidh, 'dark one' — or from Arcy in France. Two names in one. Ó Dorchaidhe is descendant of the dark man: a branch of the Uí Fiachrach who were chiefs of Partry, the country west of Lough Mask in Mayo, and a branch of the Uí Maine in Galway, both still well represented.
• Davoren · Ó Duibhdábhoireann · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhdábhoireann, 'black of the two Burrens'. A learned brehon family of Thomond, Woulfe writes, from Corcomroe in north-west Clare, where for generations they kept a great school of literature and law; Duald MacFirbis was once a pupil. The head of the family lived at Lisdoonvarna.
• Deasy · Déiseach · Gaelic territorial
  'of the Déise' — a man of the Déise people. Not a patronymic but a place-name: the Déise gave their name to the Decies of Waterford, and anyone from there carried abroad became simply Déiseach. Nearly a thousand people bore it at the 1901 census, most in Waterford and west Cork.
• Deegan · Ó Duibhginn · Gaelic septs (several)
  Descendant of Dubhcheann, ‘black head’. Three distinct families bore this name, Woulfe writes, seated in Galway, Clare and Wexford. At the beginning of the 17th century it was also common in Offaly, Laois and Kerry, and it is sometimes hidden under the English forms Dugan and Duggan.
• Delaney · Ó Dubhshláine · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhshláine, 'dark one of the Slaney'. Ó Dubhshláine, Black of the Slaney: a numerous family in Laois who were once chiefs of Coill Uachtarach, now Upperwoods, at the foot of Slieve Bloom. Ronnie Delany won the 1,500 metres at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
• Dempsey · Ó Díomasaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Díomasach, 'the proud'. Díomasach means proud. The O'Dempseys, of the same stock as the O'Connors of Offaly, descend from Ros Failghe, son of Cathaoir Mór, and were long one of the most powerful families in Leinster.
• Dennehy · Ó Duineachdha · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Duineachaidh — read as 'humane'. The family trace the name to a chieftain who fought the Norsemen at Limerick in 934. It remains a Cork and Kerry name to this day.
• Dennis · Ó Donnghusa · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donnghus, ‘brown choice’. Woulfe gives Dennis, Denis, Dennison and Denson as English forms of Ó Donnghusa. It was the name of an ecclesiastical family in Ulster, and of a Munster family found chiefly in Cork and Waterford.
• Desmond · Ó Deasmhumhnaigh · Gaelic territorial
  'descendant of the Desmond man' (native of south Munster). A surname from a territory: Ó Deasmhumhnaigh, descendant of the Deasmhumhnach, the man of Desmond, south Munster. Woulfe calls it a Cork surname.
• Devaney · Ó Duibheamhna · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubheamhain — dubh, 'black', with Eamhain, the old name of Navan Fort. Woulfe makes them an Ulster family, anciently chiefs of Uí Breasail in Armagh; the poet Ó Dubhagáin names a family of the name as chiefs of Clanawley in Down. Conor O'Devany, Franciscan bishop of Down and Connor, was executed in Dublin in 1612.
• Devereux · Deabhrús · Norman
  From Évreux in Normandy. Of Évreux in Normandy. The family came to England with the Norman Conquest and to Ireland with the invasion, settling in Wexford; the historian Edmund Hogan called them the wealthiest and most powerful of all the Strongbowian race in Wexford.
• Devine · Ó Daimhín · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Daimhín. Chiefs of Tirkennedy in the east of Fermanagh, and, Woulfe is clear on this, of the same stock as the Maguires rather than a family conquered by them. The root is Daimhín, a diminutive of damh, a bard or poet.
• Devlin · Ó Doibhilin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Doibhilean. Ó Doibhilin is the form of Ó Dobhailein used in the Annals of Ulster. Woulfe gives two families: chiefs of Corca Fhirthrí in Sligo, often mentioned in the annals, and a Tyrone family, chiefs of Muintar Devlin on the west side of Lough Neagh, now very numerous throughout Ulster.
• Diamond · Ó Diamáin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Diamán, more correctly Díomán, a diminutive of the personal name Díoma. An old ecclesiastical family in Ulster who were erenaghs of Kilrea in Co. Derry, Woulfe writes.
• Díaz · — (Spanish name; Diaz in English) · Spanish — the New Irish
  'son of Diego' — a patronymic from the Visigothic period; El Cid himself was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, son of Diego. The 14th most common surname in Spain and one of the great names of the Spanish-speaking world. And now an Irish one too.
• Dillon · Diolún · Norman
  From de Leon. Norman: from Dillon, a French diminutive of an old Germanic name. The Dillons came with the invasion; Sir Henry Dillon received large grants from King John in Westmeath and Annaly, known later as Dillon's Country, and his descendants were barons of Kilkenny West.
• Dinneen · Ó Duinnín · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Duinnín, a diminutive of donn, 'brown'. Court poets to the lords of Corcu Loígde in west Cork. Fr Patrick Dinneen's Irish–English dictionary of 1904 is still the one Irish speakers quote, and argue with.
• Diskin · Ó Díscín · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Díscín, a diminutive of díosc (apparently not a personal name). A Uí Fiachrach family once seated in the townland of Baile Uí Dhíscín, now Ballyeeskeen, in the parish of Templeboy, Co. Sligo.
• Doherty · Ó Dochartaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dochartach, 'the hurtful'. Dochartach means hurtful, or disobliging. The O'Dohertys are a branch of the Cenél Conaill, of the same stock as the O'Donnells, and were first chiefs of Cenél Enna and Ard Miodhair in the barony of Raphoe.
• Dolan · Ó Dubhláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dobhailen. Ó Dubhláin, from Dubhshlán, black defiance or challenge. Woulfe calls it a fairly common surname in all parts of Ireland, and warns that its English forms, Dolan and Doolan among them, cannot always be told apart from those of Ó Dubhlainn and Ó Dunlaing.
• Donegan · Ó Donnagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donnagán — a diminutive of donn, 'the dark one' or 'brown'. A Múscraige family of Munster who gave a king to the province in the tenth century, Flaithbertach mac Inmainén, and the Dungan baronets much later.
• Donnellan · Ó Domhnalláin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Domhnallán, a diminutive of Domhnall, 'world-ruler'. Hereditary poets of Uí Maine in east Galway, seated at Ballydonnellan. A separate family of the name held lands in south-east Ulster.
• Donnelly · Ó Donnghaile · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donnghal, 'brown valour'. Donnghal means brown valour. The O'Donnellys were a distinguished Cinéal Eoghain family, descended from Donnghal, fourth in descent from Domhnall, King of Aileach, brother of Niall Glúndubh, from whom the O'Neills are named.
• Donovan · Ó Donnabháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donndubhán, 'dark brown-haired chief'. Donndubhán is built on donn, brown, and dubh, black. The O'Donovans belong to the royal race of Munster and were first chiefs of Uí Cairbre Aedhbha along the River Maigue in Limerick, with their principal stronghold at Bruree.
• Dooley · Ó Dubhlaoich · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhlaoch — dubh, 'dark', and laoch, 'warrior'. Dubhlaoch is the black hero. Woulfe separates three families of the name, and the first two explain how it moved: the Ó Dubhlaoich of Feara Tulach were lords of Fertullagh in south-east Westmeath until the Anglo-Norman invasion, when they were dispossessed and their country handed to the Tyrrells; the second, a branch of the O'Melaghlins banished out of Meath in the 11th century, settled on the western side of Slieve Bloom in Ely O'Carroll and are numerous there still.
• Doran · Ó Deoráin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Deoradhán, 'the exile, the pilgrim'. Ó Deóradháin, from deóradh, an exile or stranger: the name of a great brehon family in Leinster, where it is still very common, and of a separate family in Down.
• Dorgan · Ó Deargáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Deargán, 'red'. An old surname in Westmeath, Offaly and Cork, Woulfe writes; in Cork it was anglicised Dorgan, which he thought 'not very correct'. A rare Cork and Kerry name, Ó Dorcháin, also gives Dorgan.
• Dowling · Ó Dúnlaing · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dúnlang. One of the Seven Septs of Laois, whose country west of the Barrow was called Fearann Ua nDúnlaing, O'Dowling's Land, until the plantation of 1556 scattered them. A second and unrelated family of Corca Laoighdhe in south-west Cork keeps the name common in Cork and Kerry to this day.
• Downey · Ó Duibheanaigh / Ó Maoldomhnaigh · Gaelic septs (several)
  Descendant of Duibheanach — or, for the second sept, 'devotee of the church'. Three unrelated families share the name: chiefs in Ulster's Clanawley, a Connacht sept, and a Munster one. Muldowney is the same name with the Maol- prefix kept.
• Doyle · Ó Dubhghaill · Norse-Gaelic
  Descendant of Dubhghall, 'dark foreigner' — a Viking. Dubhghall is the dark foreigner — the Irish name for the Danes, as against the fair foreigners, the Norwegians. Woulfe calls the surname very common and doubtless of Danish origin, and notes where it sits: thickest in the maritime counties of Leinster and Munster, in the neighbourhood of the old Danish settlements.
• Drennan · Ó Draighneáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Draighneán, ‘blackthorn’. Woulfe names a branch of the Síol Anmchadha in Co. Galway, and a Clare family formerly seated in the barony of Corcomroe.
• Duane · Ó Dubháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhán, 'black'. Woulfe finds several families of Ó Dubháin: lords of Knowth in Meath, dispossessed early; a Corca Laoighdhe family in south-west Cork, some of whom called themselves Kidney; a Connemara family, sometimes Devany; and an old Limerick family who used Downes. At the end of the 16th century it was common across the southern half of Ireland.
• Duff · Ó Duibh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubh, 'the black' or 'dark'. Chiefs of Cinel Criomhthainn in Laois, in what is now the barony of East Maryborough. One of a great family of Irish names built on dubh, dark — Duff, Duffy, Duffin, MacElduff and Black are all the same idea in different clothes.
• Duffy · Ó Dubhthaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhthach, 'the dark one'. Dubhthach means black, and the name is found in every part of Ireland, so Woulfe assumes several distinct families. The O'Duffys of Connacht gave a remarkable number of prelates to the church in that province.
• Duggan · Ó Dubhagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhagán, 'the little dark one'. Dubhagán is a diminutive of dubh, black, and Woulfe gives five families: lords of the northern half of Feara Maighe around Fermoy before the Normans; a literary family of Uí Maine, hereditary historians to the O'Kellys and compilers of the Book of Uí Maine, at Ballydugan near Loughrea; a Tirawley family; a Corca Laoighdhe family in south-west Cork; and one in south-west Galway. Seán Mór Ó Dubhagáin, who died in 1372, wrote a topographical poem naming the chiefs of the territories of Ireland.
• Duignan · Ó Duibhgeannáin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Dubhgeannán, a diminutive of Dubhcheann, ‘black head’. A distinguished literary family in Co. Roscommon, Woulfe writes.
• Dunne · Ó Doinn · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donn, 'the brown-haired' (or the god of the dead). Donn is brown. Two distinct families: the Ó Duinn of Uí Riagáin, a branch of the Uí Failghe and one of the chief families of Leinster, whose head was lord of Iregan, the country of the Slieve Blooms that matches the barony of Tinnahinch in Laois; and the Ó Duinn of Tara, dispossessed soon after the Anglo-Norman invasion.
• Durcan · Mac Dhuarcáin · Gaelic sept
  Son of Duarcán. A well-known north Connacht family, Woulfe writes, anciently lords of Cuil Neiridh in Co. Sligo and probably a branch of the O'Haras.
• Dwyer · Ó Dubhuidhir · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhodhar, ‘black Odhar’. A Tipperary family of Leinster origin, Woulfe writes, who were chiefs of Coill na Manach, now the barony of Kilnamanagh in the west of the county. Philip O'Dwyer and Owen O'Dwyer were exempted from pardon for life and estate in the Cromwellian Act of 1652, and some of the name held high rank in the service of France, Austria and Russia.

Also spelled with D

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