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Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Briain ‘descendant of Brian’, a personal name probably based on the element bre- ‘hill’, with the transferred sense ‘eminence’, i.e. ‘exalted one’. See also Bryan. In Ireland there has also been some confusion with O’Byrne (see Byrne).
- This name is borne in particular by one of the greatest of Irish septs, descendants of Brian Boru, who rose to the high kingship of Ireland in 1002.