Named by the Celts

Most people can't tell you what their own last name means. I couldn't either, until I started pulling on the thread and it led me into parish registers, clan records, famine ship manifests and one law from 1603 that made carrying a certain surname a crime. Now I can't stop and this channel is where I share what I find.

I cover Irish surnames, Scottish surnames, and Welsh surnames: the origin and meaning behind each name, Gaelic names and old clan names, anglicized names that were stripped of their Mac and O' prefixes, and the surname meaning hiding under centuries of respelling. Whether you're Irish American, tracing Scottish ancestry, or just curious about Celtic last names and name etymology, there's a good chance your name has a story nobody ever told you.

Tell us where you're listening from and which surname you'd like decoded.

You were named by history.