Mulholland
An Irish surname meaning “descendant of the tonsured servant of Caellán,” with a long history in Ulster and beyond.
The #5,474 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 48,598 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Mulholland is generally explained as an anglicized form of Irish O’Maolchallain or O’Maolchallain. The first element, maol, means “tonsured,” and in personal names it often carried the sense of a devotee or servant; the second element is the saint’s name Caellán. So the surname points to “descendant of Maolchallain,” roughly “descendant of the servant of Caellán.”
History
Nineteenth-century writers linked the name to an Irish sept, and later surname scholars treated it as one of the Irish Mul- names built on the maol element. The surname is especially associated with Ireland and with Irish migration to Britain and North America. Historical spellings vary, and older scholarship sometimes gave competing explanations, but the Irish patronymic derivation is the standard one.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books sometimes noted Mulholland alongside other Irish “Mul-” names to illustrate the old Gaelic habit of building surnames from a saintly devotee plus a personal name.
From the historical record
“of disposition. MULHOLLAND. The Irish Mulhol- lauds (formerly 3Iulhollan) are a branch of the ancient sept of Maclallan in Argyleshire B.L.G. MULL. A topographical expression, as the midl of Cantire. In other cases it may mean mulne, 0. E. for mill. In Lancashire it is an abbreviated form of Molineux. " Our…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom