O'Flaherty
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
O'Flaherty is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In St. Kitts & Nevis it is the 92nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: O Flaithbheartaigh, from flaith-bharthach 'princely ruler'; sept of Connacht, lords of west Connacht between Lough Corrib and the Atlantic.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 79K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 129K
- USUnited States1 in 256K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 188 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.1K (inferred from the name graph)
1,301 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
St. Kitts & Nevis
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Oflaherty in US United States, GB United Kingdom, EG Egypt and 1 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
O Flaithbheartaigh, from flaith-bharthach 'princely ruler'; sept of Connacht, lords of west Connacht between Lough Corrib and the Atlantic
Sources 1
- Irish family names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
O'Flaherty 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 1,301 | 1 in 256K | 1.4K | Oflaherty | 188 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 129K | 1.4K | Oflaherty | 87 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 213K | — | Oflaherty | 2 |
| AO Angola | — | ≈440 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | Oflaherty | 1 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 79K | — | O'Flaherty | 72 |
| IE Ireland | #723 | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | O'Flaherty | 61 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈43 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | O'Flaherty | 24 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | #92 | 26 | 1 in 2.1K | 26 | O'Flaherty | 3 |
1,301 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)
O'Flaherty is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Liam, Irish novelist
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Eliza O'Flahertyb. 1818GBnot in their usual nameAustralian writer and stage actress
- Sid O'Flahertyb. 1886AUnot in their usual nameSouth Australian politician (1886-1967)
- Liam O'Flahertyb. 1896IEnot in their usual nameIrish writer (1896–1984)
- Hugh O'Flahertyb. 1898IEnot in their usual nameIrish priest (1898-1963)
- Joe Flahertyb. 1941USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, writer, and comedian (1941–2024)
- Gerry O'Flahertyb. 1950USnot in their usual nameAmerican-born Canadian ice hockey player
- Michael O'Flahertyb. 1959IEnot in their usual nameIrish human rights lawyer
- Eugene O'Flahertyb. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician
- Eric O'Flahertyb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican baseball player
- Dennis O'FlahertyUSnot in their usual nameAmerican screenwriter
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 9 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.4K | #4,981 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026 | 2026 | 26 | #156 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- What does the name O'Flaherty mean, and where does it come from?
- O Flaithbheartaigh, from flaith-bharthach 'princely ruler'; sept of Connacht, lords of west Connacht between Lough Corrib and the Atlantic Recorded by Irish family names.
- In which country does O'Flaherty have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.3 thousand people named O'Flaherty, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled oflaherty.
- Where is O'Flaherty most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, O'Flaherty is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 2.1 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name O'Flaherty?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,301 people named O'Flaherty in 2010, about 1 in 256 thousand residents.
- How common is O'Flaherty compared with other names?
- In St. Kitts & Nevis, O'Flaherty is the 92nd most common surname of 149 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about O'Flaherty?
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/o'flahertyThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “O'Flaherty” — the 92nd most common surname in St. Kitts & Nevis. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.