Irish Names for Boys

With the fashions for tree names, place names, and nickname names, Derry is a three-way winner.

If you're looking for a pleasing namesake that's more modern than Darrell/Darryl, this would make an excellent choice. Farrell is an Anglicized form of the Irish Fergal, and was well used as a first name into the nineteenth century, before it faded to mostly surname use.

Gives Carlo a place-name/surname spin.

This genial Irish surname feels much more current than Donald.

Donal is, yes, just Donald with the final d cut off, but that somehow gives it a jauntier, fresher feel. Donal Logue is a Canadian actor and Donal Skehan is an Irish cookbook author.

This name was consistently in the boys' Top 200 until WW2. It's a name with so many dimensions to it: the hyper-masculine meaning, the surname-as-firstname trendiness, and the softer sound and connotation since homophone Carol was favoured in the 1940s and '50s for daughters. We think it's time for a resurgence of Carrolls amongst the boys.

Euston is best known as a London railway station, which got its name from a stately home and village in the English county of Suffolk. Ultimately it is thought to mean "settlement of a person called Efe". Unlike its Top 1000 soundalike Houston (as in Texas), Euston has never been recording on the charts.

In Cool Names, we cite this as an "Artist Name," for twentieth-century abstract painter Grace Hartigan, though for you it may just be an upbeat Irish surname.

Because it's a generic (and often derogatory) term for an Irishman, Paddy fell out of use as a diminutive or given name, though actress Mare Winningham used it not long ago.

Occasionally used as an alternative to Brandon or Brennan.

An Irish surname name with a combination of boldness and élan. Some might connect it to the founder of the group T. Rex -- Marc Bolan.

Can't help thinking of a donkey.

The Arthur variation preferred in Portugal and across much of Eastern Europe. It’s a truly international name, and one that would be easy to wear in the US as well.

Possible Gaelic alternative to Kevin and Devon.

For better or worse, this name is still firmly attached to the TV series Gilmore Girls. It's one of a number of Scottish and Irish surname names beginning with Gil, meaning "servant". In this case, it's "servant of Mary", making it a subtle male Marian name.

Long popular in Ireland and England, Ciarán is the name of Ireland's first-born saint and twenty-five other saints. While this is the authentic Irish spelling, it is more familiar in the US in the Anglicized Kieran spelling.

An old Irish surname that was big in the 1960s, but would be an unexpected choice for a child now.

After being one of the hot upscale surnames of the nineties, Garrett has left the Top 100 and this streamlined spelling is dawdling near the bottom of the Top 1000.

Roone is a lively, attractive and unusual redhead entry brought into the mix by the late TV sports and news executive Roone Arledge, who seemed to own it as a one-person name when he was alive.

Tierney is a Celtic surname with a definite Irish twinkle, a name just waiting to be discovered. Though now sometimes used for girls (in the US, not Ireland), as in jazz singer Tierney Sutton, it still has plenty of masculine punch.