Connolly

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Irish Gaelic Ó Conghalaigh, descendant of Conghalach, a nickname meaning literally ‘valiant’

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈkɔnəɫi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Connolly is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 51st most common surname.

rarermore common
  • IEIreland≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.9K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 4.8K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈150,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
456 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)

Ireland, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ConnollyLatin(measured from records)
คอนนอลลThai(measured from records)

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)

from Irish Gaelic Ó Conghalaigh, descendant of Conghalach, a nickname meaning literally ‘valiant’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Connolly, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Connolly 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.

Where Connolly is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈150,000 est.≈1 in 9K—Connolly13
US United States#92329,7101 in 11K30KConnolly456
GB United Kingdom#335≈17,000 est.≈1 in 3.9K3Connolly277
AU Australia#429≈5,300 est.≈1 in 4.8K—Connolly202
CA Canada#653≈5,200 est.≈1 in 7.2K—Connolly207
IE Ireland#51≈4,200 est.≈1 in 1.2KlistedConnolly151
NZ New Zealand#488≈720 est.≈1 in 6.9K—Connolly96

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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); the irish-family-names-grehan-1993 register. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Connolly is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Coññolly

  • Russian surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Russia, United Kingdom, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Коннолли, Конноллі, Connolley, Konnolli

48 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Connolly is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, O Conghaile, 'valorous'; ancient sept of Connacht, mainly in Cork, Meath and Monaghan; Tirlogh O'Connola chief of his name, c.1591

    as a nameIrish family names

  • ‘descendant of Conghalach’, a byname meaning ‘Valiant’. Vars.: O’Connolly, (O’)Connally, Connelly, Conneely, Conally, O’Conely, Conley.

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

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)

1850190019502000James Connolly, b. 1868James Connolly, b. 1868Walter Connolly, b. 1887Maureen Connolly, b. 1934Billy Connolly, b. 1942Gerry Connolly, b. 1950Catherine Connolly, b. 1955Kevin Connolly, b. 1974Derek Connolly, b. 1976Kristen Connolly, b. 1980

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)

FormalDear Connolly,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 37 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Connolly
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201030K#1,190
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200029K#1,116
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202029K#1,205
GB United KingdomA Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988)———
IE IrelandIrish Family Names (Grehan, 1993)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 are other forms of the name Connolly?
In the etymology graph, Connelly is a form of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Connolly mean, and where does it come from?
from Irish Gaelic Ó Conghalaigh, descendant of Conghalach, a nickname meaning literally ‘valiant’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Connolly?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɔnəɫi/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Connolly have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 155 thousand people named Connolly in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled connolly.
How common is the name Connolly?
In the United States, the national register counted 29,710 people named Connolly in 2010, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
How common is Connolly compared with other names?
In Ireland, Connolly is the 51st most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Connolly?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/connolly

The 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, “Connolly” — the 51st most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Connolly parses inside a full name →