Leonard — Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Mac Giolla Fhinnéin
Meaning: 'son of the devotee of St Finnian'
Traditional stronghold: Donegal, Fermanagh
Pronunciation: LEN-erd; Irish Mac Giolla Fhinnéin: mock GILL-a IN-yayn
History of the Leonard name
In Ireland Leonard mostly disguises Gaelic originals rather than the continental saint's name. The chief source is Mac Giolla Fhinnéin, son of the devotee of St Finnian, a sept of the Fermanagh and Donegal borderland ranked among the chiefs of Lough Erne; the same Irish name was also anglicised MacAlinion. Other families rendered Leonard include Ó Leannáin of Fermanagh, erenaghs of Lisgoole, and Ó Lonáin of Connacht, so bearers in different counties may have entirely separate ancestries. The name is found today throughout Ireland, with its old northern heartland still well represented, and it travelled widely with emigration to Britain and America.
Variants: Lennard · MacAlinion · Linnegan
Famous bearers of the name
- Hugh Leonard — Pen name of Dublin playwright John Keyes Byrne, whose play Da won the Tony Award for Best Play.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Gallagher · Maguire · Boyle · Doherty · Sweeney · O'Donnell · Duffy · Flanagan