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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish (Ulster) : adopted as an English equivalent of Gaelic Ó Duibhne ‘descendant of Dubhne’, a personal name meaning ‘ill-going’, ‘disagreeable’. Compare Deeney. Peoples is a pseudo-translation based on the phonetic resemblance of the Gaelic name to Gaelic daoine ‘people’.
  • English : patronymic from a pet form (in -el) of the Old French personal name Pepis, oblique case Pepin (see Pepin).

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