Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Dábhoireann ‘descendant of Dábhoireann’. The original form of this name was Dubhdábhoireann ‘black one of the two burrens’ (from dubh ‘black’ + dá ‘two’ + boireann), apparently denoting The Burren, a rocky area in the north of County Clare. The family was famed for its learning, and ran a literary and legal school in County Clare.
- In some instances, it may be an altered spelling of the French habitational name Daverne, originally denoting someone from either of two places called Avernes, in Orne and Val d’Oise.