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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish (Cork) : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac an tSionnaigh ‘son of the fox’, from sionnach, presumably applied as a nickname. This name is often translated as Fox.
  • Irish (Cork) : according to Woulfe, a reduced Anglicized form of Ó Sionaigh, a variant of Ó Seanaigh (whence Shanny) ‘descendant of Seanach’, from a personal name meaning ‘old’, ‘wise’. However, it was understood as Ó Sionnaigh ‘descendant of fox’ and often translated as Fox in Connacht.

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