Moynihan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From Irish Gaelic O Muimhneachdin, literally ‘little Munsterman’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈmɔɪnɪhæn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Moynihan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 7.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 34K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 43K
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
- 337 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈20,000 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)
From Irish Gaelic O Muimhneachdin, literally ‘little Munsterman’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Moynihan 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 | — | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Moynihan | 2 |
| US United States | — | 4,352 | 1 in 76K | 4.4K | Moynihan | 337 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 34K | listed | Moynihan | 127 |
| IE Ireland | #556 | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | — | Moynihan | 100 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | Moynihan | 94 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 33K | — | Moynihan | 37 |
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)
Moynihan is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Muimhneachain ‘descendant of Muimhneachdn', a diminutive of the byname Muimhneach ‘Munsterman’, i.e. someone belonging to the province of Munster. (In County Mayo this surname has sometimes been changed to Munster.)
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
byname Muimhneach ‘Munsterman’. Var.: Moynan.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, Daniel P., US politician
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Berkeley George Andrew,
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, English surgeon
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)
- Andrew Moynihanb. 1831GBrecipient of the Victoria Cross
- Maurice Moynihanb. 1902IEIrish civil servant
- Daniel Patrick Moynihanb. 1927USAmerican politician (1927-2003)
- Martin Moynihanb. 1928USAmerican evolutionary biologist and ornithologist (1928–1996)
- James Michael Moynihanb. 1932USCatholic bishop (1932–2017)
- Colin Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihanb. 1955GBBritish politician and rower (born 1955)
- Brian Moynihanb. 1959USAmerican businessman, banking executive and lawyer
- Christopher Moynihanb. 1973USAmerican actor and comedian
- Bobby Moynihanb. 1977USAmerican actor (born 1977)
- Jesse Moynihanb. 1978USAmerican writer
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 15 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.4K | #7,627 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.2K | #7,674 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.1K | #7,411 |
| 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 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname 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
- What does the name Moynihan mean, and where does it come from?
- From Irish Gaelic O Muimhneachdin, literally ‘little Munsterman’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Moynihan?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈmɔɪnɪhæn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Moynihan have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 20 thousand people named Moynihan in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled moynihan.
- How common is the name Moynihan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,352 people named Moynihan in 2010, about 1 in 76 thousand residents.
- How common is Moynihan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Moynihan is the 556th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Moynihan?
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/moynihanThe 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, “Moynihan” — the 556th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.