RILEY OCONNOR

In some cases a transferred use of the English surname, a local name from a place named with Old English ryge ‘rye’ + lēah ‘wood, clearing’. There is one such place in Devon and another in Lancashire. In other cases it probably represents a respelling of the Irish surname Reilly, which is from an old Irish personal name, Raghallach, of unknown origin. While it is presently more popular for boys than girls in Britain, the converse is true in the United States.

Irish (Derry, Connacht, Munster): Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Conchobhair ‘descendant of Conchobhar’, a personal name which is said to have begun as Cú Chobhair, from cú ‘hound’ (genitive con) + cobhar ‘desiring’, i.e. ‘hound of desire’. Present-day bearers of the surname claim descent from a 10thcentury king of Connacht of this name. In Irish legend, Conchobhar was a king of Ulster who lived at around the time of Christ and who adopted the youthful Cú Chulainn.