Molloy
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Irish Gaelic; "child" or "star of the sea"
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/mɑlɔj/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Molloy is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 8.5K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 11K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 373 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈39,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
Irish Gaelic; "child" or "star of the sea".
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Molloy 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Molloy | 12 |
| US United States | — | 7,238 | 1 in 46K | 7.2K | Molloy | 373 |
| GB United Kingdom | #917 | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 11K | listed | Molloy | 212 |
| AU Australia | #787 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.5K | — | Molloy | 163 |
| IE Ireland | #147 | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Molloy | 130 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Molloy | 158 |
| NZ New Zealand | #702 | ≈460 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Molloy | 95 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Molloy 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.
Maolmhuaidh ‘descendant of Maolmhuadh’, a personal name composed of the elements maol chieftain + muadh proud. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Maol Aodha ‘des¬ cendant of the devotee of (St) Aodh'-, see McKay. 3. An¬ glicized form of Gael. O Maol Mhaodhog ‘descendant of the devotee of (St) Maodhog'; see Madoc. Vars.: Mulloy, Malloy. (Of 3 only): Logue (chiefly N Ireland).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
composed of the elements maol chieftain + muadh proud. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Maol Aodha ‘descendant of the devotee of (St) Aodh'] see McKay. 3. Anglicized form of Gael. 6 Maol Mhaodhog ‘descen¬ dant of the devotee of (St) Maodhog'\ see Madoc.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, from Irish Gaelic Ó Maolmhuadh, or Ó Maol Aodha, or Ó Maol Mhaodhog
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, O Maolmhudaidh 'noble chief'; sept in Offaly, widespread
as a nameIrish family 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)
- Mike Molloyb. 1940GBBritish newspaper editor and author
- Dearbhla Molloyb. 1946IEIrish actress
- Terry Molloyb. 1947GBBritish actor
- Matt Molloyb. 1947IEIrish musician
- Mick Molloyb. 1966AUAustralian actor
- Trevor Molloyb. 1977IEIrish footballer
- Parker Molloyb. 1986USAmerican activist
- Myra Molloyb. 1997THThai-born American singer
- Isobelle Molloyb. 2000GBEnglish child actress
- Mark MolloyAUAustralian film director
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 26 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.2K | #4,868 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 7K | #4,891 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 7K | #4,643 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Molloy mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish Gaelic; "child" or "star of the sea". Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- How do you pronounce Molloy?
- A machine transcription gives /mɑlɔj/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Molloy have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 39 thousand people named Molloy in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled molloy.
- How common is the name Molloy?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,238 people named Molloy in 2010, about 1 in 46 thousand residents.
- How common is Molloy compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Molloy is the 147th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Molloy?
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/molloyThe 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, “Molloy” — the 147th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.