Hi Maggie, I think you are right on the money here. We can speculate all we like but our folk were often just plain inconsistent. My grandfather appears never to have used the O in his surname yet he addressed letters to my father in New Zealand with the O!! My cousins in Ireland do not use the O to this day but I do. Just preference really. (Although one cousin suggested that to be absolutely correct I should use the prefix 'ni' rather than the O.) I understand there were times when overt Irishness was a disadvantage but I suspect that everyone knew that SULLIVAN, SHEA, LEARY etc were Irish names anyway so the use of the O is not the only indicator. Great discussion. Regards, Patsy - New Zealand And yes I know, in Ireland Patsy is largely a man's name yet my father was keen for me to have it - I rest my case!! Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 7:25 AM Subject: Re: [BEARA] O'Sullivan or Sullivan? >I think we're all being way too analytical about this. It's been my >experience that people kept or dropped the O' as they felt like it on >whatever day they happened to write it or say it. > > For example, my mother and her sister both came to the States. The family > name is O'Leary. My mother dropped it and signed herself or gave as her > maiden name Mary Leary (most of the time, unless when she decided to write > Mary O'Leary). Her sister consistently kept it and always signed > Katherine O'Leary. > > Similarly, my distant cousin, Noreen Sullivan was always Sullivan, even > though the family in Beara is O'Sullivan. > > What's more, very few people in Beara use the O' in everyday speech. Most > of the O'Sullivans there are simply referred to as Sullivan or by a branch > name. But everyone always knows that these names are preceded by the O' > formally. > > Another case in point. My grandfather's name was John O'Leary. On the > 1911 census he is listed not as "John O'Leary", but as "Sylvy Leary". > That's presumably what he told the census taker, or what the census taker, > who may have already known the family, wrote down that particular day. > However, that name is the family nickname, not his actual given name. But > I know who he is because there's my mother, age 2, and her brothers, ages > 5, 4, and 3, and my great-grandparents and my grandmother, etc. It really > doesn't matter what he chose to call himself that day or what the census > taker wrote down. He was who he was. > > People used whatever they felt comfortable using on the day they were > using it. To analyze it further for some sort of sociological or > historical meaning is, in my view, quite pointless. > > Maggie Duffy > Manhattan and Beara