Hayes - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Ó hAodha
Meaning: descendant of Aodh - “fire”
Traditional stronghold: Cork, Limerick
The same name as Hughes - different anglicisation.
Pronunciation: HAYZ; Irish Ó hAodha: oh HAY-uh
History of the Hayes name
Hayes is the usual Munster anglicisation of Ó hAodha, 'descendant of Aodh', an ancient personal name meaning 'fire'. Because Aodh was among the most popular names in early Ireland, a dozen or more unrelated septs were called Ó hAodha, in Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Wexford, Donegal, Down and elsewhere. In Ulster the same Irish name was generally anglicised Hughes, in south-west Cork it became O'Hea, while in Munster the English surname Hayes was adopted, so the modern distribution of the three names roughly maps the old provinces. Hayes today is most numerous in Cork, Limerick and Tipperary, and the name travelled widely with 19th-century emigration, appearing in American public life within a generation.
Variants: O'Hea · Hughes · Hay
Famous bearers of the name
- Catherine Hayes - Limerick-born soprano, the first Irish singer to become a global opera star in the 1840s and 1850s.
- Gabriel Hayes - Sculptor whose work includes the carvings on the Department of Industry building in Dublin and Ireland's decimal coin designs.
- Richard Hayes - Director of the National Library of Ireland who secretly broke German ciphers for Irish intelligence during the Second World War.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · O'Brien · Ryan · O'Sullivan · McCarthy · Daly · Collins · Fitzgerald