Smith
Mac Gabhann · son of the smith
Smith is Mac Gabhann in Irish, said mak GOW-an, and means son of the smith.
Gabha is a smith, and there was a smith in nearly every parish in Ireland, so this name was made and translated in many places at once. In Cavan it happened wholesale, which is why Smith is startlingly common there while the same family is McGowan almost everywhere else. A Smith from anywhere else in the country is usually a local Ó Gabhann or Mac an Ghabhann family written down in English by a clerk, not Cavan people who travelled. And Smith is the commonest surname in England, so a good share of Irish Smiths are settler families with no Irish behind the name at all.
How it changes
- A man: Mac Gabhann
- His daughter: Nic Gabhann
- A woman who married into it: Bean Mhic Gabhann
- The family together: Mhic Gabhann
Where it comes from
Cavan above all, but any parish that had a forge
Also spelt
Smith, McGowan, Magowan, Gowen, MacGowan, Gowan
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.