Cathal
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ‘battle mighty’; once common, still used
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kæθəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cathal is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ireland than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.7K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 68K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 75K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Ireland (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 182 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.7K (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘battle mighty’; once common, still used. Cathal Crobhdeargh was king of Connacht; modern use aided by Cathal Brugha.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cathal counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IE Ireland | #168 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 107 | Cathal | 137 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 75K | 15 | Cathal | 144 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 1 | Cathal | 66 |
| US United States | — | 236 | 1 in 1.4M | 236 | Cathal | 182 |
| BR Brazil | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 1.5M | — | Cathal | 5 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈53 est. | ≈1 in 190K | — | Cathal | 9 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈17 est. | ≈1 in 283K | — | Cathal | 21 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Cathal is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
‘battle mighty’. This was once a common name and it is still employed nowadays. Cathal Crobhdeargh, ‘Red Hand’ (died 1224), was king of Connacht. Modern use of Cathal has been stimulated by the patriot Cathal Brugha (1874-1922), who was killed- in the Irish Civil War. Cathel is a spelling variant. Charles was used as an anglicisation. The Scottish surname Cadell is probably derived from Cathal.
as a nameIrish first names
Irish Gaelic name, pronounced ‘ko-hal’. It is derived from the Old Celtic words cath ‘battle’ + val ‘rule’. It was borne by a 7th-century saint who served as head of the monastic school at Lismore, Co. 40 Waterford, before being appointed bishop of Taranto in south Italy. Variant: Cal (in Ulster).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Irish Gaelic; a battle ruler
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Irish, a male given name from Old Irish, equivalent to English Charles
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Cathal Brughab. 1874IEIrish revolutionary and politician (1874-1922)
- Cathal O'Shannonb. 1893IEIrish writer, politician and IRA volunteer
- Cathal Blackb. 1952IEfilmmaker
- Cathal Dunneb. 1953IEIrish singer
- Cal Doddb. 1956IEnot in their usual nameIrish voice actor
- Cathal Ó Searcaighb. 1956IEIrish poet
- Chas Smashb. 1959GBnot in their usual nameEnglish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
- Cathal Pendredb. 1987IEIrish-American actor and former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter
- Cathal WattersIEIrish cinematographer and director
- Cathal mac Conchobar mac TaidgKing of Connacht
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 21 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 236 | #34,544 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2008 | 233 | #36 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2005 | 226 | #31 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2006 | 219 | #35 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2007 | 210 | #38 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2004 | 209 | #34 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2011 | 208 | #44 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2000 | 207 | #35 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2010 | 199 | #42 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2001 | 198 | #38 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 1998 | 195 | #31 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2009 | 191 | #47 |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Cathal come from?
- ‘battle mighty’; once common, still used. Cathal Crobhdeargh was king of Connacht; modern use aided by Cathal Brugha. Recorded by Irish first names.
- How do you pronounce Cathal?
- A machine transcription gives /kæθəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Cathal a male or female name?
- Cathal is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Cathal mean?
- Recorded meaning: ‘battle mighty’; once common, still used.
- What are other forms of the name Cathal?
- In the etymology graph, Charles is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Cathal have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.0 thousand people named Cathal in Ireland, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cathal.
- How common is the name Cathal?
- In the United States, the national register counted 236 people named Cathal in 2020, about 1 in 1.4 million residents.
- How common is Cathal compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Cathal is the 168th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cathal?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cathalThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Cathal” — the 168th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.