O’Sullivan
Ó Súilleabháin · descendant of Súilleabhán
O’Sullivan is Ó Súilleabháin in Irish, said oh SOOL-ya-vawn, and means descendant of Súilleabhán.
Súil is an eye, and the rest is read as one-eyed or as hawk-eyed. The name belongs to the southwest so completely that Cork and Kerry between them hold most of the O’Sullivans in the country.
How it changes
- A man: Ó Súilleabháin
- His daughter: Ní Shúilleabháin
- A woman who married into it: Bean Uí Shúilleabháin
- The family together: Uí Shúilleabháin
Where it comes from
Cork and Kerry, after being driven south from Tipperary
Also spelt
O’Sullivan, Sullivan, Sulivan
A name, not a pedigree
This is where the name came from, which is not the same as where you came from. Names were translated, anglicised, taken on by tenants and neighbours, and carried in by settlers who were no relation to the family that started them. To follow your own line, the 1901 and 1911 censuses are free and searchable, and give the county each person was born in.