Cosgrove
A surname of Irish origin, commonly used as an Anglicized form of a Gaelic patronymic and also linked by some sources to the place-name Cosgrove in Northamptonshire.
The #3,749 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 32,703 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually explained in Irish usage as an Anglicized form of Gaelic surnames beginning Mac or Ó and involving the element for a personal name rendered in older sources as Coscrach or a related form. In English records it also appears as a locational surname from Cosgrove, a parish in Northamptonshire, so the same spelling can have more than one origin. Because the historical sources do not fully agree on the Irish derivation, it is best treated as a surname with both Irish and English lines of development.
History
In Ireland, Cosgrove is especially associated with Ulster and with families recorded by 19th- and early-20th-century surname scholars as equivalent to forms such as MacCusker or related Gaelic names. The spelling also appears in English parish-based records from Northamptonshire, so some bearers descend from local English families rather than Irish ones. The name is well represented in modern Ireland and in the diaspora, especially in Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older genealogical works sometimes treated Cosgrove and MacCusker as equivalent spellings in certain Irish districts, showing how fluid surname forms could be before standard spelling.
From the historical record
“COSCAR. See Mac Oscar. COSGROVE. COSGRAVE. A parish in Northamptonshire. COSHAM. Probably the same as Cor- sham. COSSENS. COSSINS. See Cousins. COSSENTINE. A correspondent of N. & Q., X. 409, states, that more than thirtj' j^ears ago he knew a small farmer of this name in Cornwall, as illiterate as men”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom