Dropping the" O" from an Irish surname

The Ó and Mac were dropped from many Irish surnames as part of the process of anglicizing names, and the process was very random.  It could depend on what a government official or parish priest wrote down, or what the family decided to do in the transition from an Irish-speaking culture to a predominantly English-speaking culture.  For some names, such as Murphy (the Irish forms of which are Mac Murchadha and Ó Murchadha), the dropping was almost universal, and has persisted to this day (at least until very recently).  For some other surnames, it was less frequent, and people have been adding them back for the last century, and also re-Hibernicising their names (Irish law allows people to use either form, whatever they were baptized as).  One study from the mid-20th century showed that only 8% of O'Sullivan's used the Ó in 1866, but by 1944 more than 60% were using it, and the number is probably even higher now.

The Ó and Mac had nothing to do with religion, by the way, although some people may have felt that dropping the Ó might help them to fit in better..  A large portion of the Protestant poulation in the north also have Gaelic-origin names, whether of Irish or Scottish origin - often Mac names, although (contrary to popular belief) Ó names did and do exist in Scotland (and not just among Irish immigrants there), though they are much rarer than they are in Ireland (where there are more Ó names than Mac names).

In case you're interested, the Irish forms for Connor are Ó Conchobhair and Mac Conchobhair, meaning "descendant of Connor" or "son of Connor", respectively, and there were at least six different septs (tribes or "clans") which used one or the other of those names (most using Ó Conchobhair).

Thankyou Kevin for your interesting and detailed reply! 

Sorry to jump on this and with so much time passed!

Was it also common to drop the "Mc"? My family are now Daniels, before that (1910) Daniel and I'm fairly certain just before that (1792) McDaniel. I've traced as far back to 1792 through my direct line, working back from Glasgow Scotland where we currently are, to Country Armagh then Louth. That's where the trail goes cold and I'm left fairly sure but not completely confident that an ancestor I've found there is my descendant. Based on the timelines and me adding Mc back into the name I think it would be this guy, was just trying to get an opinion on this?

The other reason I think it could be my ancestor is that the counties border one another!

Thanks in advance!

Andy

Yes, both the Ó and Mac parts of a surname were often dropped when names were being "anglicized".   The Gaelic word Mac, if it wasn't dropped, was anglicized in various ways, such as Mac, Mc, and even M'.  So the Irish surname Mac Domhnaill, which means “son/descendant of Donal”, could end up as MacDonnell, McDonnell, or even M'Donnell, as well as just Donnell, and in some cases an "n" or an "l" was also lost.  The surname is spelled MacDhòmhnaill in Scottish Gaelic (with the same meaning).   The surname also sometimes became MacDonald.  The “d” at the end of MacDonald is a later addition in the anglicized version, since (as shown above) there is no "d" there in either the Irish or Scottish original forms.  MacDonald is more common in Scotland (and among Scots settlers in Ireland, especially in Ulster), but McDonnell and McDonald were both used in Ireland as anglicized forms of the surname, sometimes within the same family in various records (as happened with my own McDonnell ancestors).

Most of the Irish McDonnell's are actually descended from Scottish settlers (part of Clan [Mac] Donald) who came to Ireland to settle in the Glens of Antrim in the 13th century, from where, by the 15th century, they controlled all of North Antrim.  If you've been to Ireland, the ruined Dunluce Castle which is a popular tourist site near the Giants Causeway on the North Antrim Coast was the main McDonnell family castle.  A large number of those McDonnell's were brought from Antrim to what is now Mayo in the late 14th century, to assist the ruling family of that area, the Anglo-Norman Burke family, and my McDonnell relative are descended from that group.

I've mentioned that surname in particular, because it was also sometimes anglicized (in Ireland and Scotland) as MacDaniell/MacDaniel or McDaniell/McDaniel, and sometimes with an "s" added at the end, as in McDaniels.  If the Mac/Mc part was then dropped, it could also become just Daniels.  Most people in Ireland who use the McDaniel form are, however, descended from later Scots settlers (17th century or later), who came as settlers after the Reformation.  While the earlier McDonnell settlers usually remained Catholic, these later distant relatives were already Protestant when they arrived.

Hi,

Thanks for the above, much appreciated!

My family so far in Ireland, from as far as I can tell were Catholic, I've found quite a few of their baptism records etc showing this. It's frustrating as the last ancestor I can find/pin, there aren't any parents names on there. I'll keep searching!

Cheers,

Andy