McNamara
An Irish surname meaning “son of the sea-hound” or “son of the warrior of the sea,” long associated with a leading Clare family.
The #1,329 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 11,636 Americans shares it.
Etymology
McNamara comes from Irish Mac Conmara, usually analyzed as mac, “son,” plus Conmara, a personal name interpreted in early sources as “sea hound” or “hero of the sea.” Some older writers also glossed it more freely as “son of the hero of the sea,” showing that the exact sense of the second element was not always settled. The surname is therefore best understood as a patronymic from an old Gaelic personal name rather than as a direct reference to the sea itself.
History
The name is strongly associated with County Clare, where the MacNamaras were an important hereditary ruling family in Thomond. Nineteenth-century Irish surname writers linked the family to the descendants of Cormac Cas and treated the clan as one of the old dynastic houses of the region. The name later spread widely in Ireland and into the diaspora, especially to North America.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A number of old reference works record MacNamara as a princely or dynastic Clare surname, not just a family name in the modern sense.
From the historical record
“rock. The son of the Abbot ? Nab, Persic, a chief, a prince. McNAMARA. (Celtic.) Prom Mac, son, and cu-marra or or con-marra, " the hero of the sea." Con-marra was de- scended from Cos, King of Thomond, from whom came McConmara, or Macnamara. This family were anciently hereditary lords in the County of Clare.…”
— An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names