surnames.ie

Irish surname · 12th most common in 1911

Doyle

Also spelt O Doyle

Doyle comes from the Irish Ó Dubhghaill, 'descendant of Dubhghall', a personal name meaning 'dark foreigner' that the Irish applied to Viking settlers. Woulfe thought it of Norse origin. It has no single founding sept and is concentrated in Leinster and Munster, notably Wexford, Wicklow and Carlow.

Irish Ó DubhghaillIrish Ó Dubhghaile
1901 census
20,643
#12 · 47 per 10,000
1911 census
20,423
#12 · 47 per 10,000
1926 census
18,850
#12 · 64 per 10,000
Most numerous
Dublin
Highest share: Carlow

Language & meaning

Meaning & Irish forms

Gaelic Gaelic Irish in form, from a personal name the Irish coined for Viking newcomers; a minority of Doyles may be Scottish MacDowells, and a Norman origin has been suggested but not proven.[1][2]

Ó Dubhghaill
“descendant of Dubhghall (the dark or black foreigner)”[1][2]
The usual source of Doyle. Woulfe lists O'Doyle, Doyle, Dowell and Doole among its anglicised forms.
Ó Dubhghaile
“descendant of Dubhghal (black valour)”[3]
A rare, separate surname from Co. Roscommon, also anglicised as Doyle.

The name is built on the personal name Dubhghall, usually explained as “dark (or black) foreigner, from dubh 'black' and gall 'foreigner'”. Woulfe calls it a name the Irish gave to the Danes. Modern historians question whether the 'dark' and 'fair' foreigners of the annals really meant Danes and Norwegians.[1][4][2][5]

Pronunciation

Doyle: DOYL

Ó Dubhghaill: oh DUH-wil (short 'u' as in 'put') /oː ˈd̪ˠʊwəl̠ʲ/[2]

Place

Where the Doyles lived

How common the name was in each county, as a share of the population, in the three surviving full censuses of Ireland. Use the buttons to compare years.

Donegal: 3.2 per 10,000 (54 people) Waterford: 45.9 per 10,000 (378 people) Dublin: 112.4 per 10,000 (5,399 people) Kilkenny: 82.5 per 10,000 (619 people) Carlow: 431.9 per 10,000 (1,569 people) Limerick: 17.8 per 10,000 (255 people) Louth: 15.7 per 10,000 (99 people) Tipperary: 20.4 per 10,000 (312 people) Roscommon: 28.3 per 10,000 (266 people) Meath: 24.5 per 10,000 (160 people) Wicklow: 334.5 per 10,000 (2,035 people) Cavan: 10.9 per 10,000 (100 people) Cork: 10.5 per 10,000 (413 people) Clare: 21.9 per 10,000 (229 people) Galway: 11.2 per 10,000 (205 people) Mayo: 21.9 per 10,000 (420 people) Sligo: 14.5 per 10,000 (115 people) Leitrim: 14.8 per 10,000 (93 people) Offaly: 38.1 per 10,000 (217 people) Laois: 59.9 per 10,000 (328 people) Kildare: 135.5 per 10,000 (906 people) Kerry: 43.2 per 10,000 (691 people) Monaghan: 1.3 per 10,000 (9 people) Wexford: 373.7 per 10,000 (3,827 people) Longford: 51.8 per 10,000 (227 people) Westmeath: 50.5 per 10,000 (304 people) Tyrone: 10.1 per 10,000 (144 people) Antrim: 6.4 per 10,000 (304 people) Armagh: 9.9 per 10,000 (119 people) Fermanagh: 2.5 per 10,000 (15 people) Londonderry: 10 per 10,000 (140 people) Down: 15.4 per 10,000 (471 people)
fewerup to 432 per 10,000

Share of each county's census population. 1926 covers the 26 counties of the Irish Free State only.

Highest concentration · 1911

Carlow

432 per 10,000

1,569 Doyles · 9.28× the national share

Highest share, 1911

  1. Carlow 432
  2. Wexford 374
  3. Wicklow 335
  4. Kildare 136
  5. Dublin 112
  6. Kilkenny 83
  7. Laois 60
  8. Longford 52

Per 10,000 residents. A concentration index above 1 means the name was commoner there than nationally.

County figures as a table
County190119111926Per 10k 1901Per 10k 1911Per 10k 1926
Antrim302304—76—
Armagh118119—1010—
Carlow1,5821,5691,310425432382
Cavan101100100101112
Clare234229209212222
Cork494413430121112
Donegal575488336
Down450471—1615—
Dublin5,1825,3995,701118112114
Fermanagh415—13—
Galway213205184111111
Kerry722691719444348
Kildare791906841129136145
Kilkenny601619663808394
Laois348328348616068
Leitrim1299395191517
Limerick255255305171822
Londonderry150140—1010—
Longford252227217545255
Louth1189999181616
Mayo424420324212219
Meath125160144182523
Monaghan20919313
Offaly216217204363839
Roscommon287266219292826
Sligo131115114161516
Tipperary320312267202019
Tyrone152144—1010—
Waterford391378349454645
Westmeath310304252505145
Wexford4,0663,8273,667391374385
Wicklow2,0982,0351,982350335347

Local strongholds in 1911

District Electoral Divisions (300+ residents) where Doyles made up the largest share of the population. In Carrickbyrne, Co. Wexford, about one resident in 6 was a Doyle.

DEDCountyDoylesShare
CarrickbyrneWexford87 17.2%
TinnahinchCarlow111 15.1%
MoyacombWexford53 13.1%
BallindagganWexford95 12.6%
BallinaclashWicklow55 12.6%
RathannaCarlow39 12.2%
St. Mary'sWexford83 12.0%
GlynnCarlow65 11.8%

Origins

Septs & territories

Many Irish surnames were adopted independently by unrelated families. These are the distinct Doyle lineages described in the sources.

A surname can point you towards a place. On its own, it cannot establish a pedigree.

Ó Dubhghaill (the common Doyle name)

Widespread; most frequent in the coastal counties of Leinster and Munster · Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Dublin, Kerry, Cork

Woulfe calls Ó Dubhghaill a very common surname found throughout Ireland, but commonest along the coastal counties of Leinster and Munster, near the old Danish settlements. It does not appear in the old genealogies of the great Gaelic families, so Wikipedia suggests a fairly late origin and probably several unrelated founders. Its 20th-century strongholds were Dublin, Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, Kerry and Cork.[1][2]

Ó Dubhghaile of Roscommon

Co. Roscommon · Roscommon

An old Roscommon surname, from a personal name Woulfe glosses as 'black valour'. He says it was always extremely rare but still survived in his day, anglicised as Doyle.[3]

The name over time

History

A name for the Vikings

Dubhghall combines dubh ('black' or 'dark') with gall ('foreigner'), and medieval Irish writers used Dubhghoill for one group of Viking raiders and settlers. The term first appears in the annals in 851, when the Dubhghoill came to Dublin and fought the Finnghoill, the 'fair foreigners'. Over time Dubhghall also became a personal name, and Ó Dubhghaill, 'descendant of Dubhghall', grew from it. Woulfe considered the surname to be of Danish origin. If he was right, many Doyles descend from Norse settlers who were absorbed into Irish society.[1][2][5]

Danes, Norwegians or newcomers?

The traditional reading is that the 'dark foreigners' were Danes and the 'fair foreigners' Norwegians. The earliest Irish text making that link dates only from the 12th century, though, long after the terms were first used. Historians have proposed other readings. Alfred Smyth argued that dubh and finn meant 'new' and 'old', and Clare Downham has suggested that Dubhghoill referred to Vikings led by the Uí Ímair dynasty. Much later, in the Tudor period, Dubhghoill was applied again to newly arrived English settlers, as opposed to the 'old foreigners' of Norman descent.[5][2]

A name without a single founder

Unlike O'Neill or MacCarthy, Doyle has no famous royal pedigree. The name is missing from the old genealogies of leading Irish families, which suggests it took shape relatively late and in more than one place. Woulfe found it in every part of Ireland, but most often along the coasts of Leinster and Munster, close to the towns the Norse had founded. Wexford, Wicklow and Carlow remained among its main centres into the 20th century, along with Dublin, Kerry and Cork.[1][2]

Other routes to Doyle

Some Doyles have different origins. Ó Dubhghaile, 'descendant of Dubhghal' ('black valour'), was a rare Roscommon surname that also became Doyle. In Ulster, Wikipedia notes, the name sometimes stood for the Scottish MacDowell. Woulfe traces Mac Dubhghaill (MacDowell, MacDougall) to Scottish galloglass captains, kin of the MacDonalds, who settled in Roscommon and elsewhere in the west and north from the 14th century. A suggested Norman origin in D'Oyly, 'from Ouilly' in Normandy, remains unproven.[3][4][2]

The Doyle family of artists

One Doyle family left a deep mark on 19th-century art and letters. John Doyle, the son of a Dublin silk mercer from a Catholic family, moved to London in 1822. There he became famous as the political caricaturist 'H. B.', a signature built from his initials. His son Richard Doyle drew the first cover and the long-lived masthead of Punch, and another son, Henry Edward Doyle, became director of the National Gallery of Ireland. A third son, the illustrator Charles Altamont Doyle, was the father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.[6][7][8]

Everyday lives

The Doyles in the census

Who the Doyles were in the 1901 and 1911 censuses (and 1926 where recorded), set against everyone in Ireland in the same census.

Doyles All of Ireland Ireland's figure marked on the Doyle bar

Religion, 1911

Catholic +24.2 points vs Ireland
Doyles 97.8%
All of Ireland 73.6%
Church of Ireland −11.5 points vs Ireland
Doyles 1.7%
All of Ireland 13.2%
Presbyterian −10.0 points vs Ireland
Doyles 0.1%
All of Ireland 10.1%
Methodist & other −2.7 points vs Ireland
Doyles 0.4%
All of Ireland 3.1%

Irish language

Spoke Irish, 1901 −9.1 points vs Ireland
Doyles 6.2%
All of Ireland 15.3%
Spoke Irish, 1911 −6.8 points vs Ireland
Doyles 6.7%
All of Ireland 13.5%
Spoke Irish, 1926 · 26 counties −5.8 points vs Ireland
Doyles 7.7%
All of Ireland 13.5%

34 Doyles spoke Irish only in 1901.

Reading & writing

Could read and write, 1901 · aged 15+ +0.7 points vs Ireland
Doyles 81.1%
All of Ireland 80.4%
Could read and write, 1911 · aged 15+ +0.6 points vs Ireland
Doyles 86.4%
All of Ireland 85.8%

Family life, 1911

Household size · 4,328 households lower than Ireland
Doyles 4.62
All of Ireland 4.83
Children born per mother · women 45–59 about the same as Ireland
Doyles 6.5
All of Ireland 6.46
Children still living −1.3 points vs Ireland
Doyles 78.5%
All of Ireland 79.8%

Commonest occupations

Adults aged 15+, 1901 and 1911 combined.

Farmer2,865
Farmer's son1,316
Agricultural labourer993
General labourer960
Farmer's daughter808
Farm servant750
Labourer698
Domestic servant466
House keeper464
Farm labourer406

Born outside Ireland

1.1% of Doyles in 1911 gave a birthplace outside Ireland.

England155
Scotland29
United States27
India12
Wales3
Australia & NZ1

Median age: 24 in 1901, 26 in 1911.

Given names

First names among the Doyles

Men and boys

  1. John4,246
  2. James3,574
  3. Patrick3,478
  4. Thomas2,267
  5. Michael2,226
  6. William1,355
  7. Edward826
  8. Peter764
  9. Joseph748
  10. Martin500

Women and girls

  1. Mary5,232
  2. Bridget2,146
  3. Margaret1,958
  4. Ellen1,312
  5. Elizabeth1,221
  6. Annie1,209
  7. Catherine1,173
  8. Kate1,000
  9. Anne983
  10. Sarah578

All three censuses combined. Top five in 1926: John, James, Patrick, Michael, Thomas; Mary, Margaret, Bridget, Annie, Elizabeth.

Spellings

Spellings

This page combines the spellings below, which census enumerators and families used for the same name.

Spelling190119111926Records
Doyle20,64220,42018,847Search
O Doyle133Search

Related forms

  • O'Doyle — The fuller form, which Wikipedia calls the source of plain Doyle; Doyle arose by dropping the O.[2][1]
  • Dowell / Doole — Less common anglicisations of Ó Dubhghaill recorded by Woulfe. They also occur as forms of Mac Dubhghaill.[1][4]
  • MacDowell / MacDougall — From the same personal name but with Mac ('son of'). This was a Scoto-Irish galloglass family. In Ulster some Doyles may originally have been MacDowells.[4][2]

Diaspora

The Doyles abroad

Emigration carried the name worldwide. In the 2010 United States census:

SpellingPeopleUS rank
Doyle74,458441st

Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 surname file (public domain).

Heraldry

Is there a Doyle coat of arms?

There is no single Doyle 'family crest'. Coats of arms belonged to particular people and families, and the sources consulted here document no arms or motto for the name as a whole. One Doyle family did have its own arms: Wikipedia records that the ancestors of the caricaturist John Doyle had been granted estates and arms in the 17th century, before losing them for their Catholic faith. That grant belonged to that family alone.[6]

Websites selling a single “Doyle family crest” are selling a design, not an inheritance. Arms in Ireland belonged to individuals and their heirs, and the Chief Herald of Ireland still grants arms that way today.

People

Notable people named Doyle

  • James Doyle ('J. K. L.') (1786–1834)
    Wexford-born Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, leading clerical champion of Catholic Emancipation; built Carlow Cathedral.
  • John Doyle ('H. B.') (1797–1868)
    Dublin-born political caricaturist and lithographer, famous in London under the signature H. B.
  • Richard Doyle (1824–1883)
    Victorian illustrator who drew Punch's first cover and its century-old masthead.
  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
    Writer and physician of Irish descent, creator of Sherlock Holmes.
  • Willie Doyle (1873–1917)
    Jesuit chaplain to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action; a candidate for sainthood.
  • Martin Doyle (1891–1940)
    New Ross-born soldier awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918; later served in the IRA and National Army.
  • Jack Doyle (1913–1978)
    Boxer, wrestler, actor and tenor known as 'the Gorgeous Gael'.
  • John Doyle (1930–2010)
    Tipperary hurler who won eight All-Ireland medals and eleven National League medals.
  • Avril Doyle (born 1949)
    Fine Gael TD for Wexford, Minister of State, senator and Member of the European Parliament.
  • Roddy Doyle (born 1958)
    Dublin novelist and screenwriter whose books include The Commitments.
  • Maria Doyle Kennedy (born 1964)
    Irish singer and actress seen in Father Ted, The Tudors and Downton Abbey.
  • Kevin Doyle (born 1983)
    Irish forward who played for Cork City, then helped Reading to a record-breaking promotion.

Questions

Questions about the Doyle name

Is Doyle an Irish surname?

Yes. Doyle is the anglicised form of the Gaelic Ó Dubhghaill and is found all over Ireland, especially in Leinster. The personal name behind it, Dubhghall ('dark foreigner'), was an Irish word for Viking settlers, and Woulfe believed the surname was of Danish origin. A Norman origin from the name D'Oyly has also been suggested, but it is unproven.[1][2]

What is Doyle in Irish?

Doyle is Ó Dubhghaill in Irish, meaning 'descendant of Dubhghall'. In a few Roscommon families it represents a different and much rarer name, Ó Dubhghaile, from a personal name meaning 'black valour'. Woulfe gives O'Doyle, Doyle, Dowell and Doole as English forms of Ó Dubhghaill, and Wikipedia explains that plain Doyle arose from O'Doyle once the prefix was dropped.[1][3][2]

What does Doyle mean?

Doyle comes from Dubhghall, which joins dubh ('black, dark') and gall ('foreigner'). The Irish annals use Dubhghoill for one group of Vikings, traditionally identified as Danes, as against the Finnghoill or 'fair foreigners'. Historians now debate that identification, and some read 'dark' and 'fair' as 'new' and 'old' arrivals rather than as Danes and Norwegians.[2][5]

How do you pronounce Doyle?

In English Doyle rhymes with 'oil': DOYL. The Irish form Ó Dubhghaill is pronounced roughly 'oh DUH-wil': the 'bhgh' in the middle is heard only as a soft 'w'. Wiktionary transcribes the personal name Dubhghall on its own as /ˈd̪ˠʊwəl̪ˠ/.[9][2][10]

Is Doyle Irish or Scottish?

Overwhelmingly Irish. The related Scottish names MacDougall and MacDowell come from the same personal name, Dubhghall, but use Mac ('son of') in place of Ó. Woulfe notes that some MacDowells came to Ireland as galloglass captains, and Wikipedia says some Ulster Doyles may be of that Scottish stock.[2][4]

Is there a Doyle family crest or coat of arms?

Not one that belongs to everyone named Doyle. Arms were granted to particular people and families. The sources consulted here record no general Doyle arms or motto, though individual Doyle families, such as the ancestors of the caricaturist John Doyle, did hold arms of their own.[6]

Where in Ireland is the Doyle surname most common?

In the 1911 census the largest numbers of Doyles lived in Dublin (5,399), Wexford (3,827), Wicklow (2,035). Relative to population, the name was most concentrated in Carlow (432 per 10,000), Wexford (374 per 10,000), Wicklow (335 per 10,000).

How common was the Doyle surname in Ireland?

20,423 people were recorded as Doyle or O Doyle in the 1911 census of Ireland, making it the 12th most common surname. That is roughly 0.5% of the population, or 1 person in 215.

Looking for a Doyle ancestor?

Search every Doyle household in the 1901, 1911 and 1926 censuses, with free images of the original forms.

Search records on irishcensus.com

Evidence

Sources

  1. Patrick Woulfe, Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames — Ó Dubhghaill (1923)
  2. Wikipedia, Doyle (surname)
  3. Patrick Woulfe, Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames — Ó Dubhghaile (1923)
  4. Patrick Woulfe, Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames — Mac Dubhghaill (1923)
  5. Wikipedia, Dubgaill and Finngaill
  6. Wikipedia, John Doyle (Irish artist)
  7. Wikipedia, Richard Doyle (illustrator)
  8. Wikipedia, Charles Altamont Doyle
  9. Wiktionary, Doyle
  10. Wiktionary, Dubhghall
  11. Census of Ireland 1901 and 1911, and Census of Population 1926, National Archives of Ireland. Counts compiled by surnames.ie from the irishcensus.com transcription (dataset 20260831130351). 1926 data © National Archives of Ireland, CC BY 4.0.
  12. Irish forms cross-checked against Gaois surname data (Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, DCU).

How we compile these figures: methodology.