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Is Koen An Irish Name?

© Leona MacDonald

Not long ago I was speaking with an old friend. We started talking about our Irish families and he remarked that he was having a horrible time locating where his family came from in Ireland. I looked at him blankly and said, "Koen is an Irish name?" He begins with his story and I eventually run off and look the name up in my home library. I was a little shocked with my findings.

Koen is one of the thousands of Irish names that have been changed in the past several hundred years before families ever emigrated off the Island. It can be found as; Coen, Cohen, Cowan, O'Comhdhain, MacCoan, Coyne, MacKeown. Unfortunately for the researcher this is quite typical in Ireland. Some names look nothing like the original version. Take for instance the surname Savage. "Savage" in the Irish language is "Mac an t-Sábhaishigh." Seems completely impossible to deal with doesn't it?

Things To Keep In Mind

• One of the greatest reasons for the various spellings of Irish names is that they were Anglicized. In a nutshell, the British changed names so they could understand them, pronounce them, and record them. If you get back into records that are in the late 1700's or early 1800's you will find the trail often times will disappear. Double check names with a good Irish family name book published from Ireland. Listings are normally in both English and Irish languages as well as the many variations of a particular name. I recommend The Surnames Of Ireland and More Irish Families by MacLysaght.

• Another thing to keep in mind is that there are several dialects in the Irish language. Each dialect of Irish has different pronunciations of the same name. The English would spell names according to pronunciation. To be fair lets not blame everything on the English here. The Church was fairly awful with their spellings of names as well. So the Anglicized version of your family name may be spelled a variety of ways in the English language.

• At times, as branches of families grew larger, names were changed to show their distinct line from the rest of the family. If a family moved the spelling would often change.

• If the spelling of your Irish name has the letters; J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y or Z, you may instantly have a problem. The Irish language uses the Gaelic alphabet and there are only 18 letters in that alphabet. It does help to understand a little of how the Irish language operates. For example; K is normally spelled with a C in Irish, H is normally silent, a W is spelled "mh", V is spelled "bh". In my opinion, one must have it firmly in their brain that the name will never be spelled exactly as expected. You can find more on that at Daltaí na Gaeilge and search on the word key to get to the pronunciation files. It's the first link you find on the list.

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