Gaffney — Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Ó Gamhna
Meaning: 'calf' (from gamhain)
Traditional stronghold: Longford, Cavan
Pronunciation: GAF-nee; Irish Ó Gamhna: oh GOW-na
History of the Gaffney name
Gaffney is one of the most tangled of Irish surnames, standing for several distinct Gaelic names that were flattened into a single English form: chiefly Ó Gamhna, from gamhain, 'a calf', but also Mag Fhachtna in the Cavan area and, in Connacht, names elsewhere rendered Keaveney and Caulfield. Because of this merging, Gaffneys cannot all claim one ancestral sept, but the name's strongest historical concentration lies in Cavan, Longford and Roscommon, in the south Ulster and north midlands borderlands. It spread to Dublin and the larger towns in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and travelled with emigration to Britain and America.
Variants: McGaffney · Gafney
Famous bearers of the name
- Maureen Gaffney — Psychologist, writer and broadcaster on wellbeing and Irish society.
- Austin Gaffney — Popular Irish baritone of the mid-twentieth century.
- Cathal Gaffney — Co-founder of the Emmy-winning Irish animation studio Brown Bag Films.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Brady · O'Reilly · McGowan · Smith · Clarke · O'Farrell · McCabe · Dolan