Finnegan - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Ó Fionnagáin
Meaning: “little fair one”
Traditional stronghold: Galway, Cavan
As in Finnegans Wake.
Pronunciation: FIN-ih-gan; Irish Ó Fionnagáin: oh FYUN-uh-gawn
History of the Finnegan name
Ó Fionnagáin, 'descendant of Fionnagán', a diminutive of fionn ('fair-haired'), arose as two distinct septs: one seated on the Roscommon-Galway border between Castlerea and Dunmore, the other in the Breffny-Oriel territory covering parts of Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. Both septs were of respectable but middling rank, and the name spread steadily through north Leinster and south Ulster, where it remains most numerous today in Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. The prefix Ó was almost universally dropped in the anglicised form. The name gained worldwide literary fame through the ballad 'Finnegan's Wake', about a hod-carrier revived at his own wake by splashed whiskey, which in turn gave James Joyce the title of his last great work, Finnegans Wake (1939).
Variants: Finegan · Finnigan
Famous bearers of the name
- Chris Finnegan - British boxer of Irish descent who won middleweight gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
- Kevin Finnegan - Chris's brother, a British and European middleweight champion of the 1970s.
- Judy Finnigan - English television presenter, half of the long-running Richard and Judy partnership.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Kelly · Lynch · Connolly · Burke · Brady · O'Reilly · McGowan · Smith