Boy name origins & meanings
- Gaelic : Yellow; a Scottish saint
- Irish : Thin, lean
- English : River
Family name origins & meanings
- Irish (of Welsh origin) : topographic name from Welsh blaenau, plural of blaen ‘point’, ‘tip’, ‘end’, i.e. uplands, or remote region, or upper reaches of a river.
- The first recorded bearer of this name is a certain Ieuan Blaenau, who appears as Evan Blayney in a list of burgesses of Welshpool in 1406. Edward Blayney went to Ireland with the Earl of Essex in 1598; he was knighted in 1603 and elevated to the peerage of Ireland as Lord Blayney, Baron of Monaghan. The name was brought to North America in the 18th century from Ireland rather than Wales. The Welsh line died out in 1795 with Arthur Blayney of Gregynog, Montgomeryshire.