Kehoe - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Mac Eochaidh
Meaning: “son of the horseman”
Traditional stronghold: Wexford
Pronunciation: kee-HOH; Irish Mac Eochaidh: mok YO-khee
History of the Kehoe name
Kehoe derives from Mac Eochaidh, 'son of Eochaidh', a very old and popular personal name meaning 'horseman', from each, horse. The family were located in County Wexford, part of the same south Leinster region associated with Kinsella, Doran and other distinctively Wexford surnames descending from the old Uí Cheinnsealaigh kingdom. The surname has taken a range of anglicised spellings over the centuries, reflecting the difficulty of rendering the Irish sound cluster into English, but Kehoe has remained by far the commonest modern form. It continues to be strongly concentrated in County Wexford, with lower numbers in neighbouring Carlow and Wicklow.
Variants: Keogh · McKeogh · Kehoe
Famous bearers of the name
- Martin Kehoe - Wexford hurler and captain of the county's 1996 All-Ireland winning team
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · Doyle · Kavanagh · Cullen · Roche · Keating · Redmond · Larkin