Coffey - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Ó Cobhthaigh
Meaning: “victorious”
Traditional stronghold: Westmeath, Cork
Pronunciation: KOF-ee; Irish O Cobhthaigh: oh KOH-hig
History of the Coffey name
Coffey derives from O Cobhthaigh, 'descendant of Cobhthach', a personal name meaning victorious. Two main septs existed, one in County Meath associated with the great hereditary poets and historians of that region, and another in County Galway. Members of the Meath family served for generations as professional poets to the O'Melaghlin kings and other Leinster and Connacht lords, part of the highly trained bardic order that preserved Gaelic genealogy, praise poetry and history before print. The surname anglicised early and consistently as Coffey, and it remains widely distributed today, with particular strength in Galway, Meath and the surrounding midlands.
Variants: Coffee · O'Coffey
Famous bearers of the name
- Brian Coffey - Irish modernist poet associated with Samuel Beckett and Denis Devlin in the 1930s Irish avant-garde
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · O'Sullivan · McCarthy · Daly · Collins · Flynn · Healy · Casey