100 most popular Irish baby names for boys

Most popular Irish baby names for boys

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Today’s most common Irish baby names for boys

The Emerald Isle is home to beautiful landscapes, famous authors and poets (such as William Butler Yeats, Beckett, and James Joyce, to name a few) — and of course, Guinness and Irish whiskey.

So here are the top 100 most popular Irish baby names for boys — buachaillí — featuring the names parents living in Ireland named their newborns in 2017. 

You can sort them alphabetically or by length, search the set, and view up to 100 names at a time. (Bonus: Find out more about the history of Irish names below the list.)

MORE: 100 most popular Irish baby names for girls

Cute baby - Irish baby names for boys
Photo by halfpoint/Envato

Most popular Irish baby names for boys

NameNumber of letters
Jack4 letters
James5 letters
Daniel6 letters
Conor5 letters
Sean4 letters
Noah4 letters
Luke4 letters
Harry5 letters
Adam4 letters
Michael7 letters
Oisin5 letters
Alex4 letters
Charlie7 letters
Fionn5 letters
Liam4 letters
Cillian7 letters
Patrick7 letters
Darragh7 letters
Thomas6 letters
Jamie5 letters
Cian4 letters
John4 letters
Finn4 letters
Ryan4 letters
Rian4 letters
Matthew7 letters
David5 letters
Tadhg5 letters
Dylan5 letters
Oliver6 letters
Aaron5 letters
Ben3 letters
Leo3 letters
Nathan6 letters
Ethan5 letters
Alfie5 letters
Jake4 letters
Max3 letters
Alexander9 letters
Ollie5 letters
Logan5 letters
Jacob5 letters
Callum6 letters
Oscar5 letters
Evan4 letters
Sam3 letters
Joseph6 letters
Bobby5 letters
Mason5 letters
Tom3 letters
Joshua6 letters
Samuel6 letters
Leon4 letters
William7 letters
Donnacha8 letters
Aidan5 letters
Senan5 letters
Lucas5 letters
Eoin4 letters
Mark4 letters
Kyle4 letters
Cathal6 letters
Jayden6 letters
Odhran6 letters
Danny5 letters
Eoghan6 letters
Robert6 letters
Tommy5 letters
Martin6 letters
Benjamin8 letters
Daithi6 letters
Rory4 letters
Theo4 letters
Ronan5 letters
Billy5 letters
Andrew6 letters
Kai3 letters
Louis5 letters
Ciaran6 letters
Sebastian9 letters
Tomas5 letters
Anthony7 letters
Henry5 letters
Shay4 letters
Shane5 letters
Isaac5 letters
Muhammad8 letters
Peter5 letters
George6 letters
Scott5 letters
Arthur6 letters
Kevin5 letters
Christopher11 letters
Hugo4 letters
Dara4 letters
Ruairi6 letters
Tyler5 letters
Cormac6 letters
Jackson7 letters
Archie6 letters

MORE: 100 most popular Irish baby names for girls


About old Irish baby names

The Ancient Irish, like the Greeks and Hebrews, were called by only one name — such as Aonghus, Diarmaid or Domhnall.

However, for the sake of distinction, a name derived from some personal peculiarity — or a patronymic formed by prefixing “Mac” to the genitive case of the father’s name, or “O” to that of the grandfather — was sometimes added.

ALSO SEE: What does Mc/Mac mean in a last name?

Last names, in the modern sense, were unknown in Ireland before the tenth century. This usage necessitated a large number of names, and led to the formation of a very varied and interesting Gaelic personal nomenclature.

Some of these names, no doubt, lived only for a short time and have long since entirely disappeared; but we have names — like Art, Aodh (which would be the modern-day Aidan), Cian (Sean), Comhghan (Cowan), Diarmaid (Dermot), Domhnall (Donald), Eoghan (Ewan/Owen), etc. — that have been in uninterrupted use from the earliest period of which we have any record down to the present day.

Many others, though long obsolete as first names, are still preserved in our surnames.


Name source: Central Statistics Office, Ireland (2017); Some text was adapted from “Irish names and surnames” by Patrick Woulfe (1922)