Irish surnames starting with D

The D names in brief

• Daly · Ó Dálaigh · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Dálach, 'of the assembly'. The most celebrated poets of Gaelic Ireland: for 500 years, wherever there was a chief worth praising, there was an Ó Dálaigh with a poem — for a price.
• Darcy · Ó Dorchaidhe / d'Arcy · Gaelic sept & Norman
  Descendant of Dorchaidh, 'dark one' — or from Arcy in France. Two names in one: a Partry sept of the 'dark one', and Norman-Galway lawyer Patrick Darcy, whose 1641 'Argument' was colonial Ireland's boldest claim that only Irish parliaments could bind Ireland.
• 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.
• Delaney · Ó Dubhshláine · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhshláine, 'dark one of the Slaney'. A sept of the Nore-Slaney watershed, one of Laois's seven; the name outgrew its rivers to become a fixture from Dublin theatres to Olympic podiums (Ronnie Delany, Melbourne 1956).
• Dempsey · Ó Díomasaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Díomasach, 'the proud'. One of the few septs ever to defeat Strongbow in the field (1173). Proud by name and nature, they lost everything backing James II — and gave boxing 'the Nonpareil' Jack Dempsey's fighting name.
• 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.
• Desmond · Deasmhumhnach · Gaelic territorial
  'the south-Munster man'. Not a sept but a territory worn as a name — Deas-Mhumhain, south Munster. Families displaced in the Desmond wars carried their lost country as their surname ever after.
• 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. Norman lords of Ballymagir who by 1798 were rebel captains: James Devereux led Wexford insurgents at New Ross. From Évreux to Vinegar Hill in twenty generations.
• 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. A sept of Lough Neagh's western shore, sword-bearers to the O'Neills; in the 20th century the name belonged to Bernadette Devlin, youngest woman ever elected to Westminster.
• 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 lords of 'Dillon's Country' in Westmeath. Their regiment in French service, the Dillons, fought from Fontenoy to Yorktown; one Dillon colonel died on the guillotine, another became a general of Napoleon.
• 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.
• Doherty · Ó Dochartaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dochartach, 'the hurtful'. Lords of Inishowen. Young Sir Cahir O'Doherty's doomed 1608 revolt burned Derry — and gave the crown its pretext for the Ulster Plantation.
• Dolan · Ó Dobhailen · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dobhailen. A sept of Uí Maine on the Roscommon–Galway border that later spread through Cavan, Fermanagh and Leitrim — a name of the Shannon basin and the border drumlins.
• 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'. Hereditary marshals of O'Neill's armies from Castlecaulfield's lost fort of Ballydonnelly. Bare-knuckle champion Dan Donnelly's 1815 win at the Curragh was so mythologised his arm became a pub relic.
• Donovan · Ó Donnabháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donndubhán, 'dark brown-haired chief'. Once lords on the Maigue in Limerick, driven south by the Normans into Carbery in west Cork — where the O'Donovan of Clann Cathail is still a recognised Gaelic chief today.
• 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'. Hereditary brehons of Leinster (one of the seven septs of Laois) whose judgments once settled the province's disputes. The name itself means 'stranger': the judge from outside.
• 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.
• 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'. Monaghan's most common name. The Roscommon branch produced medieval Ireland's leading church artists — including the maker of the Cross of Cong.
• Duggan · Ó Dubhagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Dubhagán, 'the little dark one'. Septs in Cork and Uí Maine; the Galway family were hereditary historians whose Seán Mór Ó Dubhagáin (d. 1372) wrote a great topographical poem naming the chiefs of every territory in Ireland — a source historians still mine.
• Dunne · Ó Doinn · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Donn, 'the brown-haired' (or the god of the dead). Lords of Iregan in the Slieve Blooms, listed among the crown's 'chief rebels' for generations — their motto, mullach abú, 'the summit forever'.

Also spelled with D

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