If Your Surname Is on This List, England Made It Illegal in 1465

In 1465, a parliament sitting in Dublin passed a law telling Irishmen what they were allowed to call themselves. A town. A colour. A trade. A household office. Pick one, or forfeit your goods every year until you did. That law only covered four counties. The rest of Ireland lost its names more slowly, to clerks who did not speak Irish and wrote down whatever a Gaelic name happened to sound like. A family whose name meant spirited became Salmon. A family named after a dark haired ancestor became Kidney. Four separate families, hundreds of miles apart, all became King, because a syllable in each of their names resembled the Irish word for a king. These 15 surnames look completely English today. Every one of them is Gaelic. And if you have spent your whole life assuming your name had no Irish in it, this list may be the reason why. Sources include Edward MacLysaght's surname records, the Annals of the Four Masters, John O'Donovan's 19th century notes, and the Irish surname dictionaries. New Irish, Scottish and Welsh surname breakdowns every week. #IrishSurnames #IrishHistory #Genealogy #Ireland #IrishAncestry #FamilyHistory